- All right everyone, apologies for the late start and for some confusion due to changes made this morning and how we're operating things, we do have a new Slack channel for today's session, and we will use the same Q and A tool that we used yesterday, for those of you who were with us then, and that link for the Q and A tool again, is provided in the chat. We'll keep reentering it in case it scrolls up, and you're no longer able to see it, because that Q and A channel is really the main way for you to participate. So again, if someone could reenter the Q and A tool link, that would be an excellent thing for one of our moderators to do, thanks, Jennifer. Welcome to today's discussion. I just wanted to start us off by pointing out, that today our goal is not to re-litigate or critique the Astro 2020 report, but we are all generally supportive of this process of the decade of surveys, astronomy played a large role in them being started in the 60s and 70s and many disciplines now adopt this kind of prioritization process, which is an attempt to engage the entire community in setting priorities for the next decade. And the process is run by the National Academy of Sciences chartered by Congress. And this report is useful and helpful to the executive in guiding agency prioritization in decisions that must be made and ultimately policy, but all of the aspirations in these reports are funded of course by Congress. And so those appropriations also play a large role in ultimately what gets done and what doesn't. I just wanted to frame today's conversation that we are trying to use this discussion, this opportunity to understand as best we can the report in its current form and to not debate fine points of it, which some people may disagree with one or another elements in such a large report, but overall, our community stands behind the process. And we're simply today trying to understand it as best we can. And we're joined by two members of the executive committee that ended up writing the central parts of the report, Keivan Stassun, and Bruce Macintosh. Jonathan Fortney was going to join us as well, but he was unable to make it with the switched times from what we had planned earlier. And from this, we also have a few of our ExoPAG executive committee members online to help moderate the discussion and to ask questions on your behalf, in different topic areas from the report, and that those people are Josh Pepper, Michael Bottom, Ofer Cohen and Knicole Colon. So thank you all for joining us today. And just a reminder that we'll break today at 2:30, there is then a 15 minute break, if you will. And then many of us will reconvene for the NASA Astrophysics Town Hall, where we will have an address by Paul Hertz, the Director of the NASA Astrophysics Division, where we'll get a first take formally from the division on NASA's response to Astro 2020. So please stay tuned for that and follow the separate links for that. And with that preface, I would like to invite Keivan Stassun to give a few informal remarks about his perspective on the report and in particular from the exoplanet perspective. And then I think Bruce will chime in with a few things, and then I'll start asking a couple of questions related to the state of the profession. So Keivan please.

- Great, can you hear me okay? Am I coming through?

- Yes, we can.

- Yes.

- Super, okay, thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Keivan Stassun. It's a real pleasure to be with you today. I will take just a moment and then hand it off to Bruce for some opening thoughts as well. I just thought it would be useful to share with you from my perspective. And I think this is kind of a consensus view of the steering committee. With this kind of document is necessarily sober, we want to muster evidence, we did an enormous amount of fact finding and input gathering across the community and we have these consensus recommendations, and so on and so the whole thing comes across hopefully as a sort of sober, scholarly well-considered document. And I just wanted to open this by perhaps adding to that. I think we really viewed this decadal report as aspirational, maybe even hopeful, and ultimately very human. Bruce, I hope will amplify that view. We call it the decadal report because it's a process that we undertake every 10 years, but I think it really sunk in for us that we have an opportunity here to chart a path for not only asking really truly grand exciting questions, but charting a course for how we get there, even as those questions are so ambitious and the pathway for getting there, that the timescale is sufficiently long, that it can seem daunting, perhaps even depressing. We really viewed it as an opportunity to take a very hopeful, and as I would say, human view, we're asking really big questions and we didn't want to feel fettered in taking the opportunity to chart a course for answering them. So I'll just start with that very, again hopeful perspective on what we tried to accomplish, especially in the exoplanet domain, Bruce.

- Thank you for the helpful perspective. Many people know I'm not a naturally helpful person, so it's amazing to have been on the committee with people like Keivan who were. Yeah in my perspective on this was an odd time to be doing this, to be on this committee during the pandemic, during the 2020 election, there was often this feeling like the important questions weren't, X-ray versus far IRR, but should we be stockpiling canned food or guns for the coming apocalypse, and even more seriously operating in the shadow of the complexities of the James Webb Space Telescope and the cost and duration and the risks that at the time we didn't know the outcome of, I think it's an extraordinary testimony to everything that the community did that panel didn't come up, that the committee didn't come up with a forward-looking ambitious, let's do really transformative things report. It would have been easy to settle into, let's just do explorers forever. And I think it's really an achievement of the astronomy community that our vision was more ambitious than that, while simultaneously trying to find ways to make that vision executable, to make sure that projects happen in a way that their budgets are understood and controlled, and that some of the mistakes of the past on the technical side don't happen. And as Keivan said to also be thinking about people and trying to at least reduce the mistakes that astronomy has made with respect to people in both our interactions with ourselves and our interactions with the communities we move through, we wouldn't claim to have solved either sets of problems, but that I think they were addressed and grappled with in a really meaningful way. And that's really due to the amazing people involved in the committee, both the scientists and the engineers and the people who are our leaders in diversity and equity in our community. Other couple of notes I wanted to make on it before we went into the discussion to think about interpreting it. One thing would be, although this is a NASA focused meeting, we should pay a little attention to the big NSF recommendations because they also bear on exoplanets and especially questions like the future of studies of transiting exoplanets beyond the JWST era. Clearly the extremely large telescope will have an important role to play in that or characterizing through direct imaging to habitable zones of low-mass stars. And so we have to think about it globally. I'd also note in terms of interpreting it, as Keivan said, and others have said, this is guidance, this is a roadmap, but it's not a document that dictates things to three significant figures. We shouldn't get hung up about whether a telescope is six meters versus 6.6 meters inscribed diameter. We shouldn't get hung up over whether overthinking about the bud. We should not think that the budgets that we are notionally thought of for missions are accurate to even 50%. And the point of the program is that we have this mission maturation program for the grand flagship mission over the next eight years. And that will produce the numbers that are accurate to 20 or 30%, that will make the final decision about diameters, that will produce cost estimates, that you can stand in front of Congress and justify, we recognize we're not there yet. And really the real recommendation is spend real amounts of money to get to the point where we know all these things as we define missions before they get a name, before we emotionally bond with the details of a telescope. And we were deliberately non-prescriptive about things like architecture decisions, recognizing that those have to be made by a process that is much more than us sitting in our pajamas on Zoom, but a whole bunch of real engineers doing detailed and accurate thinking. And we shouldn't take credit for that. I should also note that that level of spend a lot of money up front before you finalize things came through in a lot of white papers and a lot of work that community did in a lot of, in the design studies we had from the missions and so forth and endorsing that. And then my other note about interpreting the mission, I should remind everybody of interpreting the decadal survey, excuse me, that the resolution of the decadal survey for NASA is at the kind of billion dollar level, the decadal survey doesn't endorse particular $50 million programs or particular explorers. So if they're missing, that doesn't mean they shouldn't happen, It just means, in particular things like the excellent NASA precision RV program is really below the resolution of a decadal survey recommendation. And so not saying anything about it, wasn't an endorsement of it in any particular way, or the small SAT programs are below the level of resolution that we can be considering here. And yeah, I think we should go over the questions, and cause the last thing I would say to everybody here, this was a triumphant report for exoplanets and that's because of the work that everybody on this call and all of our friends and colleagues have done over the past 10 years, we spent the time since Astro 2010 proving we know how to build these damn missions, showing, making the science case compelling and quantitative, retiring risks. And that was enough that the community as a whole, as embodied in the committee, recognized both that our science goals are compelling and that we can do them. And that's not at all on the committee, that's all on all of you for which I would collectively applaud you all.

- Thank you very much, Bruce. And thank you both and all members that were involved in producing such a wide ranging and thoughtful report, we can all appreciate it. It must have been a huge amount of work. And so thank you for your service in this way. I think there are a couple of questions that are in the Q and A tool that are worth sort of stating sort of upfront. And one of them came from yesterday, where there was a kind of a procedural question, which is how specifically shall the agencies follow the recommendations of the decadal survey? And there's an answer there approved through the food chain, at least in the astrophysics division, that points out that not every specific recommendation needs to be followed, as Bruce said to the third decimal point, but that the recommendations are taken very seriously at the agency level and that they largely set priorities unless something else extraordinary happens to upset the thinking or the attempt for implementation is somehow not feasible for whatever region budgetary or otherwise, but they are taken very, very seriously. And so there's certainly not a plan to second guess anything in the report at the agency level, but you can read the response carefully for yourself. And thank you for the question that came up yesterday, sort of point of order one, and also come to one, let's see if it's come up about the exoplanet science strategy. I think this maybe is worth you guys commenting on. Astro 2020 referred back to the exoplanet science strategy, but didn't specify which parts were strongly recommended versus weekly recommended versus don't agree. Does that mean our proposals can cite any and all of the recommendations from the exoplanet science strategy as indirectly recommended by Astro 2020, or should proposals no longer refer back to the exoplanet science strategy? Now those are question for NASA program officer, but maybe it's worth you guys commenting a little bit on the sense of Astro 2020 versus the sense of recommendations from the exoplanet science strategy.

- I mean trying to think through the recommendation in the exoplanet science strategy is automatically more detailed than the whole decadal survey can be because we have to cover all of astrophysics. So, in terms of, for example, the excellent discussion of the science motivations and science details, much more of that is in the exoplanet science strategy, the capital R recommendations also, so this is something I should've mentioned in the intro remarks, if you're reading a National Academy document, there's a hierarchy of binding this and the things that start with sentences, the bolded, call that paragraphs that start with capital R recommendation colon, are really what the agencies have to be the most responsive to, and the exoplanet science strategies, capital R recommendations, I think. The only one I can think of that wasn't explicitly called out in the decadal that's NASA relevant would be the need for precision RV. And like I said, I think that's to some extent below the resolution of a main decadal survey. So yeah, broadly speaking, I would say it's incorporated by reference, we're not superseded is probably a reasonable thing and how, I mean, program officers, just because you say, or a National Academy documents and do this doesn't mean a program officer has to like you more, or a review panel has to like you more, NASA has to set out what its review criteria are.

- Yeah, I'll just add to that, to say, I agree entirely with what Bruce said, the exoplanet science strategy report is a National Academies consensus study report. It is a full fledged stands on its own consensus, National Academies product. And so we, as part of the larger, developing a sense for the larger agenda for the field agenda with a capital A right for the field for the coming decade, I think it's safe to say the exoplanet science strategy report, you know what, was a major piece of input that we took. And so I think for the community, if it were me, I think we can say, unless there's some recommendation that we made in the decadal report that directly contradicts a recommendation in the exoplanet science strategy, I don't think there's such a contradiction. I think what you look at is Astro 2020 singles out the pathway to habitable worlds as one of the top high level priorities for the decade, and speaks some to major mission priorities and so on, but the details of how we get there, right? I think the exoplanet science strategy as a fully fledged National Academy's report has a lot of important detail about executing that pathway.

- Thanks Keivan, thanks Bruce, for that answer, I think I'll pick up one more very general question, which asks and the reason I'm not asking the questions that are highest priorities, is because the others who are tasked with thinking about those issues, will ask them in a few minutes, but one question asks the decadal did a wonderful job synthesizing inputs from across the community, congratulations and thank you. What recommendations do you have for future decadal surveys to make them equally successful or more successful I'll add? With their process elements that could have been improved from your perspective?

- Well, I would say, I don't know, maybe there's an analogy here with like Supreme Court precedent or something, where to a certain extent, I think we try to set a precedent out of necessity. I think we tried to set a precedent for how the decadal process can operate as a driver within what is now necessarily a multi-decadal ambitious science program, right? And so we obviously did not want to presume that the 20 people who happened to sit on the Astro 2020 decadal had the clarity of vision for the next 50 years to set a 50 year agenda. At the same time, we did not want to look at the opportunity for multi-decadal kinds of ambitions and opportunities and simply punt and say, well, we can only speak on timescales or 10 years so Astro 2030, we'll have to start all over and figure it out all over again. So, I think we tried to set a precedent for how the decadal process can operate within that hopeful, optimistic multi-decadal timeframe. And so, right Bruce, I think we hope that the 2030 folks will see the precedent that we tried to set there as a good one to continue working with.

- I think that's a good way to express it. I think there ways about engaging with the community that one can think about tweaking, but I also think we're kind of within the statute of limitations, still for thinking about the details of the complex moving parts logistics, and that people who run the 2030 survey will have the opportunity to think about the best structure as people now decadal survey structures, they've evolved in terms of how they fraction off into some panels and how information flows between these. So there are always is a bit of introspection and lessons learned as the next one spill and spins up. But I think it's probably too early to know what all those lessons are. Yet I should say in terms of stuff that worked unambiguously the investment NASA made in the four big flagship mission teams and the probe studies. So that things weren't PowerPoint view graphs, but were these beautiful 500 page documents was obviously something that has to keep happening to make missions be meaningfully considered.

- All right, thank you, I'd like to pivot now and we've already been going for about 20 minutes and I wanna leave time for as many topics as we can cover in the next hour. Keivan, I'd like to turn towards the state of the profession part of the document, and I have three pages of notes, we can talk for hours about it. It's so rich and so wonderful, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to, and Bruce as well, to address some elements. I mean, we wanted to start with this topic, because we as ExoPAG community, feel it is of great import. And my first, I'll just read the quote that starts and ends in the executive part of the document, the pursuit of science and scientific excellence is inseparable from the humans who create it. And when I look at the dollar numbers we were talking about versus the impact in our field, I mean, this has real value for money, right? It's just a few millions here and there can make dramatic impacts probably that would resonate throughout the field. I wonder if there's a few things that you feel are worth emphasizing here, I'll start with Keivan, or I have some specific prompts I can give you, but if you have any things you'd like to just share in the next couple of minutes.

- Sure, a couple of things come to mind. One is that, I think we really try, and this goes beyond the exoplanet community specifically, but certainly is relevant to it. I think we tried in this report to elevate the humanity of it all, right? Astronomical, the questions that we ask don't ask themselves, we ask them. And the pursuit of answering them, discoveries don't make themselves, we make them. And so, really in a foundational and vital way, supporting the health of the community is something that I think we really tried to convey as an overarching priority. And so then within that, the makeup of the field, or, for all the reasons that I think we all understand, is part and parcel of that. So it has just sort of the highest level thought that I would express here. The other is that, many on the call now and in the exoplanet community more generally, have been involved, I think in a leading way with equity and diversity and inclusion issues and efforts in the field, including engagement with the inclusive astronomy meeting that was held in 2015, which produced the set of recommendations. And it sounds sort of funny to say, but I think it's important to say, that one of the recommendations that came out of the inclusive astronomy meeting was that the next decadal should make actual recommendations as regards to diversity and inclusion. And so I think we took that to heart. And so the fact that there are bold face recommendations capital R, to Bruce's point, and that those recommendations have dollar numbers attached to them, right? The decadal process is a uniquely, sort of a unique opportunity to help ensure that checks get written for these things that we say we value. So I'll just sort of start with those reflections, perhaps.

- Yeah, and perhaps I can pick up on two very specific recommendations, Keivan, which I think could be very impactful. One is this issue of data collection and what the actual issues with regard to demographics are. And I was very pleased, and this is something that's come up on the APAC already as well. One doesn't always know the magnitude of the problem. And I think you guys well pointed out the issue of data collection, but also pointed to some real constructive solutions, which I understood was from the National Institutes of Health. Was there a sense that those procedures will transfer seamlessly to the NASA astrophysics program?

- Oh you know, I would never say seamlessly. I've learned enough in my life to never use the word seamlessly, I use it all the time. No, I'll probably not seamlessly, but look, I mean, I think we can, NIH is a massive organization, and they have managed to put in place a scheme. I'm sure it is not perfect, but I have to say, and I'm gonna say this in a very pointed way, but it's really kind of pointing at all of us. Right I mean, it is a failure of our own community, what we confronted and it sounds like you all have as well, Mike, is just a kind of unacceptable level of data collection and quality of data collection. So surely we can do better than that. Almost anything intentional and deliberate and systematic and intentional, I think would be better than what we have been doing, or at least what we were able to obtain. And yeah, I mean, if NIH can figure something out that is deliberate and systematic and intentional and across the board, then surely we can do it too.

- And I think the other recommendation that resonates for this community is the idea of having these intervention programs at the SMD level versus in the divisional level. Whereas you point out they could become more impactful. I wonder if there's any debate in the committee about this, or it was just sort of generally recognized that to get our own house in order, it's much better to have these interventions more close to the people as possible, as opposed to a more broader, I can't remember the word that you used, but this kind of agency level or systematic at the higher level, where as well intentioned as they may be they could be less effective.

- I just wanna comment on framing of questions like asking, was there debate in the committee, we're still in the statute of limitations for not that there was, or wasn't debate in the committee on that recommendation, but that you should avoid phrasing things like that, cause internal deliberations is not a thing we can talk about.

- Thank you, Bruce. My apologies.

- But if a different recommendation looks brilliant and obvious, you can probably guess that it was largely supported by the committee, I don't know.

- Yeah, that's right. But indeed what we know, what we do say in the report is, Michael as you were just summarizing is that there is an opportunity for impact, closer to our own community, when we continue to make investments and intervention type programs at a level that is close to our community. I mean, I think one of the things that we saw and we point to this example actually very directly in the report, some of the most impactful from the standpoint of diversifying the field at the PhD level and beyond, some of the most impactful programs of the last 20 years have been relatively modestly funded efforts, but indeed at the sort of more granular level within the agencies and what we saw happen over time, whether it was because of budgetary constraints or other factors, some of those resources either went away or were kind of subsumed within much larger umbrella kind of diffuse funding programs that I'm sure haven't led to good things, but have had the unfortunate impact of reducing our more direct access, our meaning our community. More direct access for resources to continue to do that kind of good work within our community. So, bridge programs, fellowships that are targeted for astronomy and astrophysics, right? So indeed for the reasons that you mentioned, we call out reinvesting at the granular level of our discipline.

- All right, thank you. And thanks again, Bruce, for clarifying our, we shall not ask you about deliberations within your panel. I wanna also say that, neither Bruce nor Keivan nor any of our moderators can speak to NASA policy of how these things will be implemented. For example, I think there's a question about, what's NASA strategy to improve funding on the specific element? I think we really are waiting for this afternoon to hear from Paul Hertz for a first cut at answering some of those questions. Others can jump in and pick up those questions if they disagree with me, but we're not necessarily yet going to talk about implementation or actions that NASA will take until after we've heard Paul's response.