From 2012 to 2023, the percentage of Americans identifying as LGBTQ+ rose from roughly 3.5% to 7.6%, and NASA's budget climbed from $17.8 billion to $25.4 billion in the same period, producing an r of 0.9677. The causal mechanism is left as an exercise to the reader, though several come to mind: perhaps greater social acceptance correlates with greater cosmic ambition, or perhaps the universe simply expands faster when more people feel comfortable being themselves. NASA has not issued a statement on this. They are presumably busy looking outward.
Both metrics are driven by shifting political and cultural priorities under successive administrations and generational change. LGBTQ+ identification rates have grown steadily as younger, more accepting generations came of age and social stigma decreased, allowing more accurate self-reporting. NASA's budget grew under both the Obama and Biden administrations with investments in Artemis, commercial crew programs, and space science. Both trends reflect a broadly more progressive and scientifically engaged cultural moment in the same time window, making them parallel expressions of the same shifting national priorities rather than causally linked phenomena.
When two trends are both expressions of the same underlying cultural shift, their correlation is real in a sociological sense but misleading as a causal claim. The data is accurately describing a moment in American history; it's merely lying about the mechanism.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Americans identifying as LGBTQ+” vs “NASA budget” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
