With the FY 2005 budget finally done, you know what that means: it’s time to start thinking about FY06. (Actually, planning for FY06 started months ago, but most people are still focused on how the 2005 budget would turn out in Congress.) While NASA got a robust increase in 2005, the prospects don’t look nearly as well for FY06: the AP reports that NASA may get an increase of no more than one percent in President Bush’s proposed budget “pending appeals to the White House by outgoing NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe”, according to the AP. This would effectively be a minor cut, since one percent is less than the rate of inflation. Still, NASA fares better than many other federal agencies, which will see no increase or even a cut in their 2006 budgets.
