We can dare to dream of the stars again, if only we can achieve this small thing.

[Annik]

In the interest of clarity, while it's not clear how that 0.53% should be measured (there are legitimately different methods), 0.53% of the federal budget for 2012 was $20 billion dollars. (Providing my math is correct and there's a favorable wind from the East. har har) Are we saying that this $20 billion dollars is better spent on NASA than any other potential use? Curing cancer? Adequate police forces? Sheltering the homeless? Educating our children about the science we already know? I find such a balancing equation far from trivial.

Just to put it in perspective, that 0.5% over ten years could reduce the national debt by 0.5%. Are space dreams that will end up being paid for by mortgaging our children's future more important than that future. Again, I find the arguments not simply uncompelling, I see no arguments at all. It's a "Don't Worry, Be Happy," approach that I find less than laudable.

Well, considering the US's defense budget makes up half of the money spent on defense in the entire world, that might be a good place to take our budget from.
The info-graph can be seen here.

In addition, the Department of Defense gets 20% of our national budget ( You can see that info-graph here ), which is crazy. Crazy! We don't need to be spending this much where we could spend it otherwise. I'm all for cutting it down to only 10% and allocating all those funds for scientific/medical needs. Maybe then we can afford socialized medicine.

As Mr. Tyson said in the video, there is no excuse.