Returning to the Moon costs billions — but what does the US gain from it?

To finance this “new space race”, the American Congress allocated 24.4 billion dollars (R$122.6 billion) to NASA for 2026, which represents around 0.35% of all federal spending. The agency’s budget request for 2027 is a much smaller amount, at $18.8 billion (R$94.4 billion), and represents the Trump administration’s second attempt to cut funding by almost 25%.