<p>It reflects the new policy that the president announced a couple weeks ago, and Keith Cowing, of NASA Watch, has spared us from having to plow through the turgid document ourselves, and interpreted it in that context.</p>
<p>As Keith points out, the budget increases for the first few years are modest, but they are real, and NASA, having been now told that the shuttle will no longer be available a decade from now, can truly focus on new things with the funding available. The agency budget will slowly grow to almost $20 billion dollars by the end of a second Bush term (should that occur), but given the dramatic growth of the federal budget in this administration, it will remain less than its historical one percent of the total, which this year will exceed two trillion dollars.</p>
