Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the - Solar System ...

B
White Papers
One of the defining features of a decadal survey is broad community participation. One of the
most important ways to ensure that the planetary science community played a major role in providing
input to this report was the creation of a mechanism by which individuals and groups of individual
researchers could submit white papers directly to the committee. White papers on all topics of relevance
to the survey were strongly encouraged and the community was made aware of this via community
newsletters, open letters to the community distributed using several relevant email explorers, and through
personal solicitations during town hall meetings.
To facilitate document management, several submission guidelines were imposed. These
included imposition of a seven-page limit (in a pre-specified format), transmission to the committee via a
specific individual (the submitting author) through a special NRC website, and a submission deadline of
15 September, 2009, designed to ensure that all contributions were available for consideration and
discussion no later than the second meetings of both the steering group and the five panels. Everyone in
the planetary science community was encouraged to author white papers. However, members of the
committee’s steering group and the chairs of panels were discouraged from doing so on the grounds that
they should appear to maintain a degree of impartiality.
In total, 199 white papers were received and are listed below alphabetically by their respective
submitting author. Most, but not all, had multiple authors. Indeed, multiple authorship was specifically
encouraged by the committee on the grounds that consensus is more compelling that a single viewpoint.
To facility consensus and to advertize what white papers were in preparation, the Lunar and Planetary
Institute established a web site where potential authors could state their intentions to draft a white paper
on a specific topic and, thus, accrete coauthors. Some particular whitepapers attracted a hierarchy of
authors, co-authors, supporters, and endorsers; sometimes running into the hundreds. The committee
made no attempt to keep track of the identities and affiliations of those individuals whose only
contribution to a particular document was to add their name to it. The committee was able to identify
1669 unique individuals as authors or co-authors of at least one white papers (Table B.1) For comparison,
some 380 individuals contributed 24 white papers in support of the first planetary decadal process.
The energy, financial resources, and time devoted by the planetary community to this process is
both gratifying to the committee and clear evidence of broad desire among the community to openly
discuss and set priorities to guide our future activities related to the study of the solar system and
planetary systems in general.
PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION
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