Monday minute: Discussions and the decadal survey

Here’s an interesting look inside the Planetary Science Decadal Survey report, written by panel member Kunio M. Sayanagi: Planetary Exploration 2013-2022: Scientists are ready, what about you?  In related news, we’ve seen several exhortations recently for scientists to lobby Congress for increased science funding for missions, based on the Decadal Survey results and the 2011-2015 budget discussions.  Would a brief introduction to lobbying resources and organizations be helpful to readers of this site?

Have you read Gains, and Drawbacks, for Female Professors?  This article in the New York Times recognizes a set of facts that many of us have known for years: 1) women should be on university committees; 2) when there are a small number of women in a field or university, they get spread very thin being on committees; and 3) all that time on committees comes at the expense of their research or other work.  Do also note the discussion in the article about recommendation letters; it echoes much of what was discussed at this year’s LPSC breakfast!

If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, please note that we have updated the web site to better enable discussions of recent topics — all posts will now appear on the front page of the site for approximately two weeks, so that discussions can continue in the comments as they have on several recent posts.  Everyone is always welcome on the site, and your participation is very much appreciated — comments encourage our writers to continue bringing you news and commentary on work and life in planetary science.