A good sign, and another signal about the great support that planetary exploration at NASA receives in Congress.

But let's focus on some of the good news.

Mars 2020 gets an increase—up to $228 million—to support the next stage in its development. The near-Earth object program gets a $10 million boost to $50 million to help identify targets for the asteroid retrieval mission. And, of course, the new start for Europa.

What's a "new start"? At its most basic level, it means that NASA can pursue the development process to create a mission to explore Europa. That's new, and that's important. Europa has moved from "mission concept" to "mission," with details to figure out, plans to draw, teams to assemble, and hardware to build (eventually). It's a step that Congress could not force NASA to take (NASA being an executive branch agency and all) no matter how much money it gave to them. The White House and NASA deserve credit for deciding to pursue this mission. In fact, I believe that this budget will occupy a small place in history as document that officially began the exploration of Europa.

Outside of planetary science, you have the Administration requesting significantly less money for SLS/Orion than Congress provided last year, and requesting significantly more money for commercial crew than Congress has ever provided. Expect both areas to be a point of contention during as this budget works its way through the Senate and House. NASA points out (correctly) that their contracts with Boeing and SpaceX require a higher level of spending for the next few years, and any decrease would delay the 2017 goal of launching astronauts from U.S. soil again.

The Asteroid Retrieval Mission continues its odd course. The Administration once again requests technology development funds for solar electric propulsion, NEO detection, and other related programs throughout the agency, yet only requests $38 million for pre-formulation studies of the asteroid capture spacecraft itself. NASA has yet to decide on which option (redirect a small asteroid or grab a boulder from a larger one) to pursue, and we are not sure when this selection will occur. This continued delay does not bode well for the future of this mission as proposed.

But overall, I think this is a budget worthy of praise. There are problems, sure, but overall this is a strong budget that moves NASA in the right direction. Let's keep running with these increases—all the way to Mars, all the way to Europa.

Fund NASA.