Casey, there probably are a few people out there who have just turned to this longer conversation

to talk about a pretty good week for planetary science advocacy who may have just come

from planetary radio, so they heard our quick overview and

we've got a little bit more time now five or six times as much time to go into

some detail but even with that we better jump into it because it's quite a story.

The gist of this is if there's a theme, it's a good week to be in planetary science.

It is a good week. And you know we should say just for space science and space exploration too

This is all in the context I should say of our good planetary week of a good week for NASA's top line budget

Actually being increased by the House of Representatives, up to $17.9 billion.

Now that's an increase of over $200 million from last year and an increase of over

430 million from what the president proposed for 2015.

So let me just jump back because let's just set this stage again for anyone coming in because

this is a long process and what I'm calling, we're in high budget season in the House and

Senate right now but this all goes back this is a yearly cycle that we go through and

this is why I never try to vacation in the spring because there's too many things to do.

So what usually happens the whole process is about a month and a half ago the White House

releases their budget request for 2015.

That's the request for the entire federal government. It's a huge document. Obviously

we're concerned with NASA's budget. So the president requests the full

program they break it down into all sorts of what NASA does.

Congress then takes that request and generally tears it into a million pieces and then

move forward with their own.

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