Seems I remember from my history lessons that Isabella sold her personal jewelry to pay for the trip. The money didn't come from public funds.
If every federal elected official, executive branch appointee and federal judge dug deep and coughed up $500,000 each, we could go back to the moon.
If you threw it open to citizens to donate money too, you could probably fund the Mars mission.
And if the private sector was given the money instead of letting NASA blow it, we could probably go to Mars for about a billion dollars.
And all without extorting money from the public.
Extort: Latin : to obtain from a person by force or threat of force. See: income tax