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A simple, well-proven surgery can restore sight to millions, and something even simpler, a pair of glasses, can make millions more see.

This sight... is by far the noblest astronomy affords.

Over the past 50 years we got versions of X-ray specs and space vacations, and even death rays. But the X-ray specs don't fit on your face - they're big things that screen your luggage for guns. Space vacations are real, but they cost $20 million. We have death rays, but you have to be a triple Ph.D. to play with them.

Looking down the road, space exploration and the benefits it yields - in medicine and information technology - should not be overlooked.

The photographs of space taken by our astronauts have been published all over the place. But the eye is a much more dynamic mechanism than any camera or pictures. It's a more exciting view in person than looking at the photographs. Of course, I personally am sick and tired of hearing people talk like that: I want to see it myself!

I was fortunate to have a grandfather who was an optometrist. Vision therapy was something that we routinely did to strengthen our eyes and give us better focus. I was fortunate that he could teach me techniques that are still paying dividends for me to this day.

At Oculus, we're now looking at eye specialists, people who really understand how the human eye works, and how that affects human emotion.

When we meet people who are astronauts or deal in astronomy, it's always really fascinating.

Space in general gave us GPS - that's not specifically NASA, but it's investments in space.

I started taking pictures when I was around 10, so I have been inadvertently been training my eye for it for years. Traveling gave me a ton of practice as well, and the ability, once you learn to properly manipulate and capture light and freeze any moment in time for safe keeping, has always fascinated me.