NASA's VERITAS Venus orbiter. Credit: SpaceNews/NASA/JPL

Numbers can be deceiving, and budget numbers especially so. When the White House released its 2024 budget proposal March 9, it included $27.2 billion for NASA, 7.1% more than what the agency received for 2023. It appeared to be a sign of strong support for the agency on the heels of successes like the launch of Artemis 1 and the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...