Volunteering, it's the job that many do as a hobby or as a tradition of altruistic acts, which for the most part, include the use of one's free time for the benefit of a community, or in many ways, a bigger cause. When it comes to science, it may seem as an abstract act into something vague or of no specific benefit. However, going to space and understanding the universe is to search for ourselves in a vast humanist act of love, which is for me, the most beautiful part of volunteering for The Planetary Society.

When moving into New York City I quickly learned that having a second life after your day job is no news, everyone is in it, whether as a freelance or otherwise. Therefore, volunteering is a way that many, like me, enhance our every day while benefitting our surroundings and gain resourceful skills. Thus, when I decided to volunteer into an organization I looked towards the education of science, moreover, science as a way of thinking. What this meant was turning a selfless act into an act of evolutionary growth, leading to long term benefits to the world's citizens. Concurrently, it is the passing on of the torch to future generations for the interrogation of our existence in a scientific manner, and subsequently our survival as a species.

As opposed to other volunteer groups, and as a volunteer myself, I envision the education of today's younger generations should be focused into understanding and leading in engineering, science, philosophy, and the humanities. Which raises the rational fact that even if that does not feed the hungry in an immediate fashion for example, it will in fact, produce world citizens aware of the need to improve technology and the shift of powers for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, improving production and distribution of food supplies, as simplistic as it may sound.

To present day, organizations like The Planetary Society have given volunteers and members the tools to educate the general public on science literacy, space exploration and its benefits. Also, it creates opportunities to empower the world's citizens to reach a better understanding of our world view, with projects likeLightSail and the Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grant Program, all funded with donations of members like me. Finally, this all includes organized space advocacy, which to this date has come to be highly important when promoting the need of a scientifically literate constituency, while urging for the funding of NASA and its many programs (of which it includes earth science).

After 35 years of being founded, by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, and being led currently by its enthusiastic CEO, Bill Nye, The Planetary Society has brought forth a global proposition: advance our place in space. As Carl Sagan envisioned when cofounding The Planetary society in 1980, “By examining other worlds — their weather, their climate, their geology, their organic chemistry, the possibility of life — we calibrate our own world. We learn better how to understand and control the Earth” as he wrote on an essay first published in December of 1980 in the first issue of The Planetary Report magazine. Words that are as pertinent today as they were when he first wrote them.

By examining other worlds — their weather, their climate, their geology, their organic chemistry, the possibility of life — we calibrate our own world. We learn better how to understand and control the Earth.

Even though The Planetary Society is not the only organization available, as a member and volunteer myself, to be active in the search of truth through intellectually skeptical inquiry you do not require much more than the enthusiasm to change the world and critical thinking. Like other volunteers and members before me, there are many ways to move science based education and inquiry forward. It is more than making it cool and interesting. It is also, as I saw proven through volunteering, to move our future forward not only in space exploration but also to move forward on climate, socially conscious education, and as I envision, equality for the citizens of the world.