Risky future

I'm reading Roving Mars by Dr. Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover missions. It's a great read and it gives a good behind-the-scenes account of the MER missions. It's also quite depressing because they come so close to failing so many times. Dr. Squyres started down this path nearly 2 decades ago. He's spent most of his professional life on this and he's one of the fortunate ones in that his planetary mission succeeded in its goals.

Reading his book made me reassess the path I'm on. I've got a good science degree with which I'm making decent money on but I'm also doing my M.Sc. in astronomy on a course-based program. It's very slow because I can't take more than two courses per year as that's all I can handle right now between work, family and education. At the end of it, I will have to try and find a university that will take me in for my doctorial studies. Only when I have my Ph.D in astronomy or astrophysics will I be able to work in that field. I will be in my mid- to late 40's by then. If I make any contributions, it won't be for another decade or two, probably the latter.

If I transition over to astronomy/astrophysics, I will be making far less money than I am right now. I've also got my eye health to consider; I've heard of blind software developers but I only know of exactly one blind astronomer. Astronomy has always been considered a visual field and that assumption will stick regardless of any advances in assistive technologies.

So why am I even down this path? Isn't it smarter to stick with computers, saving my earnings for the time when I'm blind? The honest truth is that I don't know if this is the right path. My heart says "Go for it - this is your dream!" but it doesn't pass any risk analysis of the situation.

For now, I'm going to stick with it. Dreams are great but they can't feed me if I go blind.