Randall Carlson on nasa: what the evidence says · JRE #872
SUBJECT: NASA
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
right now NASA is spending the equivalent of one attack helicopter a year on investigating the comet and asteroid danger. You know, $50 million a year.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The guest, speaking on this episode which aired November 16, 2016, stated that NASA was spending about $50 million a year on near-Earth object (NEO) detection and planetary defense. NASA's own record of the program corroborates this: the enacted fiscal year 2016 federal budget allocated $50 million to NEO observations and planetary defense, more than a ten-fold increase since the start of the prior administration, and NASA formalized the effort as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in January 2016. A June 2025 NASA Office of Inspector General review of PDCO funding (Figure 3, budget by fiscal year) shows the total planetary defense budget was about $50 million in FY2015, roughly $60 million in FY2016, and about $65 million in FY2017, the period surrounding this episode's broadcast, before rising to roughly $155 million by FY2019 and peaking near $350-380 million in FY2024 and FY2026 (with FY2026-2030 figures still proposed as of the report). The $50 million figure the guest cited was therefore an accurate contemporaneous figure at the time it was stated, though it would become a significant understatement of NASA's planetary defense spending within a few years of the episode airing. Status: well-supported for the period the claim was made.