Space weather is expected to be an important part of the new decadal survey of solar and space physics, currently set for release in 2012. This is appropriate—ever more detailed knowledge, modeling, and predictability of the Sun-Earth system are required. Every 10 years, scientists in several different space-related research subjects (e.g., astronomy, solar and space physics, planetary and Earth sciences) convene to assess the progress of their field over the previous decade and to recommend research areas for the coming decade. Organized by the U.S. National Academies, these surveys set the tone for national priorities in a given subject. The first decadal survey for solar and space physics, The Sun to the Earth–and Beyond (National Academies Press), was released in 2003, devoted an important chapter to space weather effects on technologies, and included recommendations for research needs as well as for policy understandings. The new survey will likely highlight new vulnerabilities stemming from the many technological advances of the past decade. For example, the deployment of wireless communications has increased exponentially around the world, and these communications can be susceptible to ionospheric disturbances and solar X-rays and radio noise. The continued growth of Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies for many societal functions—including laying out sewer pipes and electricity cables as well as for navigation, air traffic control, and guiding ships to port—means that subtle effects of the ionosphere on these satellite-transmitted signals must be addressed to achieve high spatial accuracy. A huge surprise in the past decade was confirmation that large solar radio bursts can produce complete outages of GPS reception over extensive geographical areas. Thus, a major continuing research challenge is to predict the amplitude and spectra of radio noise and X-ray fluxes that might be expected from a solar flare before an active region erupts. Such predictability remains far in the future; this is a frontier research area, and it is hoped that the new decadal survey will address among its recommendations pathways to achieve more predictability on this topic. Additionally and unfortunately, many policy issues identified in the first survey remain unresolved to date. One of these continues to be defining the relationships between government agencies and commercial enterprises to “optimize the benefits of the national investments, public and private” (The Sun to the Earth–and Beyond, p. 16). Another involves the definition and execution of a “verification and validation program for all publicly funded models and system-impact products before they become operational” (p. 14). I hope that the new survey will provide recommendations on how to accomplish these goals. Daniel Baker, a professor at University of Colorado and a member of the Space Weather advisory board, has agreed to serve as chair of this new decadal survey. Principal sponsors of the survey include NASA, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and NOAA, all of which have important objectives and commitments to basic understanding of the solar-terrestrial system and its impacts on ground- and space-based technologies. The new decadal survey provides a real opportunity to define the frontiers of measurements, models, theory, and policy for space weather applications. I look forward to its deliberations, conclusions, and recommendations. Louis J. Lanzerotti is editor of Space Weather and a distinguished research professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology, in Newark. He served as chair of the first decadal survey in solar and space physics.