NASA Benefits to US Economy in 2019. $64.3 billion. 312,000 jobs

Let's start another NASA then and double the benefits? Maybe ten of them for ten times the benefits?

Because it doesn't work like that. This is nonsense and ignores the opportunity costs and all the negatives of taxation and borrowing to pay for it in the first place.

Like most people I of course believe in the ideals of NASA, but they'd be lost for another 30 years without Elon.

This is fine, but it ignores the opportunity cost of spending that money.

"With an investment of just one-half of 1% of the federal budget"

US federal budget 2019 was $4.4T[1]. 0.5% = $220B. So with an influx of $220B NASA generates $64B worth of output. Seems like a sinkhole to me in terms of economic value.

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56324

You made an arithmetic error and are off by an order of magnitude. NASA's 2020 budget is $22 billion.

The linked report says:

“In FY19, NASA employed more than 18,000 civil servants and had a budget of $21.5 billion. “

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/2020_na...