Since the first extrasolar planet was discovered in the late ‘90s there has been a revolution in astronomy.  Through observations on the ground and in space we have discovered over 5000 planets.  Except for a small handful, all have been discovered by examining their host star and all are closer in and larger than Earth.  We are now entering a new era of directly imaging planets which will provide the opportunity to discover and characterize Earthlike planets in the habitable zone of their host stars, opening the possibility of detecting biomarkers indicative of life.  The are two types of space-based instruments to do this, coronagraphs and starshades.  Bob Vanderbei played a pivotal role in both, using optimization tools in their design.  In this talk I’ll describe how this is done, what Bob’s contributions have been, and the current status of NASA space missions.