Eyesight

Some of you may know that while I was growing up I wanted to be a navy officer. My eyesight has always been poor, however (I had eye surgery while still an infant, but I still have a weak eye and generally poor distance vision and depth perception, though oddly my low-light vision is above average). I abandoned those plans after talking with my opthamologist, who assured me there was no way into the navy's combat branches with my eyes, even with additional surgery. I moved on, but I never quite reconciled myself to the illogic of insisting on near-perfect vision and denying laser surgery in this day and age.

I was thus rather floored by irony today - NASA has relaxed its vision standards, among a quiet but broad relaxation of the military's standards in several catagories. The Wall Street Journal reports that two surgeries have been added to the acceptable list (the first two, AFAIK), and standards lowered slightly across the board for astronaut candidates.

It is, of course, far too little too late for me. My sight continues to slowly deteriorate, and I'd have to make a serious effort even to get back into the shape I was in high school (in appropriate gear, I could run 8 miles in an hour over broken terrain). While I am in the aerospace industry, I rather doubt that experiance in designing aircraft interiors will stand out in a NASA application.

Still, it does cause a bit of excitement. I still have the goal of seeing Earthrise before I die, and for once the trend is working in my favor.