NASA's aeronautics program continues to shrink under the Bush administration's Fiscal 2006 budget request, dwindling to a handful of "public good" and long-term aircraft technology efforts as the agency shifts its focus to deep-space exploration. In the second agency budget request since President Bush announced his goal of expanding robotic and human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, using the Moon as a stepping-stone to Mars, aeronautics research would take a $53.9-mil-lion (6%) cut to $852.3 million. That trend would continue in Fiscal 2007, when the aero budget is slated to fall another $124.7 million (almost 15%), and beyond as inflation nibbles away at a flat aero budget line in the $730-million range through Fiscal 2010.
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