Just to spell it out:

> in comparison

The total 2026 US Defense budget is 1.06 Trillion dollars, or ~1,060 Billion dollars. NASA's 2026 budget is 24.5 Billion dollars, or 2% as much as the defense budget.

You chose to single out the Space Force, which has the smallest budget of the 5 branches of the US military. For contrast, the Navy's budget alone is 235 Billion $, close to 10x NASA.

For further comparison, the R&D budget of a single private company, Apple, was $34B in 2025.