Thirty Years of Exoplanets

We are now thirty years into one of the most exciting endeavors of humanity: the search for other worlds and life in the universe. The success of our collective research is driving design work for new space missions and new ground-based telescopes that will enable the detection of life elsewhere. However, these facilities - especially in the U.S. - are at a critical juncture for funding decisions. What can we do as individuals to excite interest in these projects? In addition to publishing ground-breaking new results, exoplanet astronomers need to raise their collective voices to articulate the global transformative impact of these multi-billion dollar observatories.