It's an increase of 0.8% per year. And if the time series happened to have been started at 1988 -- there was a big increase in NASA's budget between 1987 and 1988 -- it would have been about 0.16% per year instead.
(Incidentally, something is definitely wrong with Wikipedia's figures, which show the nominal budget going up $7.6M -> $9.1M but the inflation-adjusted budget going down $17.7M -> $14.5M between 1987 and 1988.)
The goods provided by NASA are things like technological innovation, scientific discovery, and sheer coolness, all of which (it seems to me) provide net benefit proportional to the population. And the tax revenues available to fund it are kinda-sorta proportional to population too, even ignoring economic growth. So an increase of, at most, 22% over a 25-year period during which the population has grown by about 28% and the inflation-adjusted GDP by about 2x ... yes, I think that is too bad.
(Incidentally, something is definitely wrong with Wikipedia's figures, which show the nominal budget going up $7.6M -> $9.1M but the inflation-adjusted budget going down $17.7M -> $14.5M between 1987 and 1988.)
The goods provided by NASA are things like technological innovation, scientific discovery, and sheer coolness, all of which (it seems to me) provide net benefit proportional to the population. And the tax revenues available to fund it are kinda-sorta proportional to population too, even ignoring economic growth. So an increase of, at most, 22% over a 25-year period during which the population has grown by about 28% and the inflation-adjusted GDP by about 2x ... yes, I think that is too bad.