$257 billion spent on space last year

13 governments spent US $83 billion last year on space, with the United States accounting for four-fifths of that amount. By itself, NASA outspent the other 12 countries taken together, and the U.S. Department of Defense spent even more—quite a bit more, in fact. Yet for every dollar governments spent, corporations spent two. A little over half of that commercial spending was on satellite services, mainly direct-to-home television; most of the rest went to infrastructure.