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NASA actually receive lots of funding(might be second after military). Most of their work doesn't align with any of the politics promises, even then they receive good chunk of budget spending.

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NASA 2018 budget is $20.7B. It is not in any way "second after military".

NIH 2018 budget is $37B, NSF is $7.8B. DOD budget just for R&D and test/evaluation is $88B.

At least there is the benefit of DOD tech trickling down to NASA tech at some point.

So, 3rd behind military and NIH then?

No, no, no. I just picked a couple of numbers of relevant research-related agencies as a general comparative. ("This is is the kind of league NASA is in.") Other comparatives might be DOE, NOAA, USGS, NIST.

The federal budget is about $4000B. Discretionary spending is about $1200B. NASA is so far down in the noise of this that it's not funny (20B/1200B ~ 1.7%).

As an example, Federal highway spending (not state) is $44B.

Health and Human Services was $1.7 Trillion, Social Security was $1.1 Trillion, Defense was $1.1 Trillion, NASA is pretty far down the list (~19th), at $24 Billion, .35% of budget:

https://www.usaspending.gov/#/explorer/agency

In the end, it's always about politics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Political_oppos...

Isn’t everything?

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