US Presidency
1962

During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $ 60 million a year; to invest some $ 200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $ 1 billion from this Center in this City. To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous 8 years combined. That budget now stands at $ 5,400 million a year, a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.