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RE: How low can a satellite go to stay in orbit?
Technically, If an object gets below 160km, it will experience an exponentially increased orbital decay. But the decay is there at even higher altitudes because of the stray atmospherical particles.
"The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km (205 and 270 mi) by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft."
Practically every once in a while the ISS fires its engines retrograde(this means the rocket is propelled prograde - in the direction of movement). A lot of fuel is used this way, actually.
So any other spacecraft in LEO should do the same.
Now that can explain the huge budget of NASA.
I wouldn't want to be the bad guy here but I do have suspicions of bad management of the funds NASA gets. Many private companies are paid using those funds and I have witnessed some awful comments made by former astronauts - now congressmen that would be viewed as manipulative. That's the deal with public funds and politics 101 :(
I could ellaborate but I would talk with no proof.
I do see your sentiment echoed in many quarters. People feel that they can achieve better with a leaner budget. But since it is the government, the only way to make them see reason is to go the SpaceX way. Make space projects cheaper and remove some of the "mysteries" which surrounds space exploration.
Yes, sadly here is the problem.
The big friends of NASA are the United Launch Alliance (ULA) - a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. They had a monopoly until a few years ago when SpaceX came to snatch some of the military contracts. They had no real plans of going cheaper until now, it's why monopolies are bad.
This is why aliens don't visit :D
They'd be forced to go cheaper with SpaceX reusable concept at play.