In addition, Brazil and Italy have signed on as payload participants. The International Space Station will orbit at an average altitude of 220 nautical miles, at an inclination of 51.6 degrees to the Equator. A budget overview is available in the Fact Book . More information about NASA's budget is available at the NASA Headquarters Office of Legislative Affairs. The entire NASA budget is less than one percent of the U.S. Federal budget, and the Space Station budget, which is less than 16 percent of the NASA budget, costs every American about eight dollars per year.
Money spent on America's space program is a good investment.
Every dollar spent by NASA returns at least two dollars in direct and indirect benefits. Nonrecyclable items will be put on either a Russian return vehicle that will totally disintegrate reentering Earth's atmosphere or one of our shuttles, which will bring it back to Earth for disposal. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan gave the station its original name - Freedom. In the years that followed, Space Station Freedom's design underwent modifications with each annual budget cycle as Congress called for its cost to be reduced. In 1993, President William Clinton called for the station to be redesigned once again to reduce costs and include more international involvement.