Another Day in Action

This past Tuesday, March 8th, Planetary Society advocates around the world worked to enable humanity’s highest ideals of space science and exploration.

Curiosity, intellectual challenge and peaceful cooperation are qualities inherent in space exploration — now more than ever we need to invest in humanity at its best.

The Day of Action is The Planetary Society's premier advocacy event. We facilitate face-to-face meetings between our members and decision-makers in the U.S. Congress. Our Space Policy & Advocacy staff provide detailed training, talking points and otherwise help prepare our participants to be the best space advocates they can be.

Like in 2021, the 2022 Day of Action was a virtual event.

In the United States, 115 Planetary Society members met with a total of 161 congressional offices to advocate for key NASA programs, including the NEO Surveyor asteroid-hunting space telescope, Mars Sample Return, and human exploration beyond Earth. A further 680 advocates wrote and called their representatives to echo the same key priorities.

Advocates outside the U.S. contacted their governments and urged them to join a global collaborative effort to protect Earth from asteroid impacts.

We also emphasized the value of space exploration as a way to invest in our higher ideals. Space exploration brings out the best in us. It drives collaboration, inspires curiosity and challenges our best and brightest to pursue challenging, rewarding careers.

The Day of Action is our largest annual advocacy event (and the largest of any independent pro-space organization), and we’re thrilled to have had such strong participation by our members. This was not a casual commitment: participants spent hours training, prepared for weeks to refine their strategies, took time off of work on a weekday and spent a full day advocating for space with a variety of congressional offices.

This advocacy works. Just this week we saw a congressional budget that fully funded Mars Sample Return, Europa Clipper and Planetary Defense. Investment in planetary exploration is at an all-time high. When this many people all voice the same message, it’s impossible to ignore it.

See you next year.