50 Years of Solar System Exploration Historical Perspectives

On October 25-26, 2012, a symposium was held in Washington, DC to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first successful planetary mission, Mariner 2. The purpose of this symposium was to consider, over the history of the Space Age, what we have learned about the other bodies of the solar system and the processes by which we have learned it. In this collection of selected papers presented at the event, broad topics relating to the history of solar system exploration are addressed.