I think we can all agree with the motivations here, but we need to avoid raiding one of the few truly long-term, optimistic goals of the U.S. government.

A proposal for a 1% across the board cut to all agencies, proposed by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), was also defeated, fortunately.

The Senate has yet to release details about its proposed NASA budget for 2015, though it looks like we'll see the first draft next week. The full Senate must pass its own version of the budget and then reconcile it with the House, so there is still a ways to go, but so far things are looking quite good for Planetary Science and for NASA.

We should take a moment to appreciate what happened today. NASA got an increase (a small one, but an increase nonetheless) within the context tight fiscal policies in government. The CJS committee, led by Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA), made the NASA pie a little bigger, which supported an increase to NASA science, particularly planetary science. This is not a perfect bill (Commercial Crew receives too little funding in my opinion) but overall the House funded NASA at a stronger level than anyone predicted. It's easy to get angry at Congress for a lot of things, but we should also make sure to acknowledge when they do something good. Today is a good day for space advocates, NASA, and space science, and I hope it's the start of a trend leading into the future.

Take notes, Senate!