China's annual military and civilian space budgets (combined) totaled merely $100 million in 1998.  
NASA's budget was $13.5 billion.   Did bureaucratic and government contractor-pandering NASA achieve 135 times more, though?   Meanwhile, did you know that NASA typically has a larger budget than all the rest of the world's civilian space programs combined?  This is the case even as other nations continue to outshine NASA in various respects, while NASA's tax-subsidized bureaucrats nevertheless blame NASA's problems on a supposed lack of money instead of a lack of pro-entrepreneurial reforms which could make taxpayers' supporting of big government programs increasingly less necessary.

SOURCE:	www.EuroConsult-ec.com
Country	Civilian  space budget (1998)	Military space budget (1998)
America (USA)	$13.5 billion	$12.5 billion
Argentina	$39 million	$0
Brazil	$175	$0
China	$70 million	$30 million
France	$1.427 billion	$457 million
India	$410 million	$0
Japan	$1.716 billion	$0
Pakistan	$10 million	$0
Russia	$442 million	$200 million
South Korea	$57 million	$0
Spain	$111 million	$23 million
Taiwan	$31 million	$0
Ukraine	$57 million	$0
United Kingdom	$296 million	$175 million

    Can you believe how the sponsorship-seeking space media is practically ignoring (or at least potentially distorting) how much smaller China's space budget is than bloated and under-achieving  NASA's?  Does your favorite "news" source regarding space even disclose how much sponsorship it regularly receives from tax-subsidized, bloated and monopolistic U.S. aerospace contractors which profit from preserving the ailing status quo?
      Anyhow, here's more regarding recent Chinese advances involving affordably sending humans into space,
as well as Chinese aspirations regarding the Moon and Mars...

      On June 25, 2000, China's Long March rocket performed its 61st launch.  This was Long March's 19th consecutive success since August of 1996.   Included among the payloads over the years were the first European-made communications satellite (SinoSat-1) and also various Iridium satellites.  (Source)

       .

     The Russians build space stations (such as Mir) and launch humans into space around 25 times more cheaply than NASA, and with a superior human casualty record too.   Would China's example not appear to further support the assertion that pro-entrepreneurial reforms are long overdue at NASA?

Meanwhile, George W. Bush has been publicly asked about his views regarding the
Chinese space program and here is the videoclip of his response.   

NASAWatch.INFO:  If bloated, contractor-manipulated & excessively bureaucratic NASA has the Chinese to help pay for its own wastefulness, will we become a spacefaring species anytime soon?   Shouldn't there be competition between space programs and companies, rather than collusion, so that prices will finally come down?

*What is preventing NASA from simply offering space-related competitive prizes to the private sector [like DARPA does], as an efficiency-rewarding means of procurement that replaces NASA's parasitic central planning?  Don't space entrepreneurs like Burt Rutan deserve for NASA to finally grant their wish?   
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*Which proposed legal reforms could best help our stagnating aerospace industry?