.............food for thoughts..................

Scientist and alternative thinker...........

O'Leary graduated from Belmont High School, Belmont, Massachusetts, in 1957. He received a bachelor of arts degree in physics from Williams College in 1961, a masters of arts in Astronomy from Georgetown University in 1964, and a doctor of philosophy in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967.
O'Leary graduated from Belmont High School, Belmont, Massachusetts, in 1957. He received a bachelor of arts degree in physics from Williams College in 1961, a masters of arts in Astronomy from Georgetown University in 1964, and a doctor of philosophy in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967.
While attending graduate school in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, O'Leary published several scientific papers on the Martian atmosphere. O'Leary's Ph.D. thesis in 1967 was on the Martian surface.[4] Soon after completing his Ph.D. thesis, O'Leary was the first astronaut specifically selected for a potential manned Mars mission when it was still in NASA's program plan, projected for the 1980s as a follow-on to the Apollo lunar program. O'Leary was the only planetary scientist-astronaut in NASA's astronaut corps during the Apollo program. O'Leary resigned from the astronaut program in April 1968, and cited several reasons for resigning in his The Making of an Ex-Astronaut, which included the cancellation of the Mars program in early 1968.
After O'Leary's resignation from NASA, Carl Sagan recruited him to teach at Cornell University in 1968, where he researched and lectured until 1971. While teaching at Cornell, he studied lunar mascons. O'Leary subsequently taught astronomy, physics, and science policy assessment at several academic institutions, including the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (1971–1972) Hampshire College (1972–75) and Princeton University (1976–1981).
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_O'Leary