In Pursuit of Galactic Archaeology: Astro2020 Science White Paper
  The next decade affords tremendous opportunity to achieve the goals of
Galactic archaeology. That is, to reconstruct the evolutionary narrative of the
Milky Way, based on the empirical data that describes its current
morphological, dynamical, temporal and chemical structures. Here, we describe a
path to achieving this goal. The critical observational objective is a
Galaxy-scale, contiguous, comprehensive mapping of the disk's phase space,
tracing where the majority of the stellar mass resides. An ensemble of recent,
ongoing, and imminent surveys are working to deliver such a transformative
stellar map. Once this empirical description of the dust-obscured disk is
assembled, we will no longer be operationally limited by the observational
data. The primary and significant challenge within stellar astronomy and
Galactic archaeology will then be in fully utilizing these data. We outline the
next-decade framework for obtaining and then realizing the potential of the
data to chart the Galactic disk via its stars. One way to support the
investment in the massive data assemblage will be to establish a Galactic
Archaeology Consortium across the ensemble of stellar missions. This would
reflect a long-term commitment to build and support a network of personnel in a
dedicated effort to aggregate, engineer, and transform stellar measurements
into a comprehensive perspective of our Galaxy.
