As is so very often the case, Neil deGrasse Tyson is completely correct. Whenever people bemoan the state of the American space program to me (and trust me, it happens all the time), they usually do it without any understanding of the context of where all of it fits into the grand scheme of things. We do not spend a lot of money on space. Yes, $6 billion sounds like a heck of a lot, but that’s money spent over years. That’s money that’s gone to American scientists and engineers and companies. Money spent on the space program is spent here on Earth. We don’t load it onto a rocket and send it into space.