The United States of America are undoubtedly a space nation; having
landed the first person on the moon back in the 1960s, and working on
space exploration since, and with the Congress and Donald Trump, former
US-president, having founded the
US Space Force
on December 20, 2019, a branch of the US armed services showing the
United States' interests in staying a dominant nation in space. The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, is provided with
the world-wide highest budget:
$19.95 Billion dollars each year in 2019. In 2021, the budget rose up to
$23.2 Billion
With this budget, NASA does not only build their own rockets, space
hardware and program their own software; they do also fund
(non-)governmental companies, organizations and institutions putting
efforts into making space more achievable: The range of NASA-funded
contracts reaches from launching hardware into space and providing
systems for lunar landings to microbiological research organizations and
educational institutions like universities.
Apollo 11 crew member Buzz Aldrin - Apollo 16 crew member John Young saluting the flag on the moon
Source: NASA/Charlie Duke | NASA History
Since NASA retired the Space Shuttle after the Challenger and Columbia disasters in 1986 and 2003, they have not had an own rocket capable of sending payload to orbit, so (especially for the ISS-missions) they relied on the Russian Soyuz-program. However, since May 30, 2020, astronauts are able to launch into space from american soil with rockets built in America: SpaceX, a private company founded by Elon Musk, provide their Falcon 9 rocket and Crew-capsule named "Dragon" to NASA-astronauts to fly to the ISS.
Challenger disaster (January 28, 1986)
Columbia disaster (February 1, 2003)
On this website, you can see a small excerpt of the funding NASA
provides to several companies, focussing vehicles able to launch from
earth to orbit or to land, e.g., on the moon or on mars.