I imagine designing and building space craft and paying top scientists a wage costs A LOT of money.
So do government programs make money or does it just use up tax dollars without much return?
Also how does a company like SpaceX, for example, make their money?
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Government space programs do not make any direct income. They get their money from the government and is funded entirely through tax money. However a lot of the research and education done as part of the space program helps build the economy which again increases the amount of taxes that can be collected. So they are generally considered a net positive for the national budget.
Companies like SpaceX, Orbital sciences, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc. are making their money by providing launch services to both the government and private. They will use a lot of the research done by NASA and the other space agencies to design and build launch rockets that gets sold on the open market. It is not uncommon for NASA to pay for the design and testing of projects they need but which would not have been completed otherwise, primary examples being the development of rockets and spaceships to carry astronauts to the ISS. But the same rockets are used for private actors to launch commercial satellites into orbit as well as space tourism.
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