UMass Amherst Geologist: Space is Cooler Than Sushi

The Boston Globe recently described University of Massachusetts-Amherst as a place stuck between what it is and what it wants to be. Resources are limited, facilities are lacking, and home grown students are going to exotic places like Connecticut for the education the Amherst campus can't provide.

The school countered negative press by trying to build the world's largest sushi roll. Nice.

We think the school should prop up geologist Christopher Condit, who is now helping to train astronauts and scientists for potential future space missions to the Moon, or even Mars. He's in northern Arizona's San Francisco volcanic field for two weeks to work on vehicles that could roll on another planet's surface, or habitats to house space travellers.

Condit''s focus is to work with space geologists.

He once worked as a pilot for the NASA Apollo program, transporting geologists and crew members.

His UMass bio is impressive, to say the least. He knows about "basaltic volcanism" - your guess is as good as ours. He also once equipped a classroom "with an emphasis toward creating encapsulated programs for disseminating data-intensive geologic maps and information." No help here.

Perhaps big words simply distract Bostonist like a bright, shiny toy. But, promoting this brainiac to boost UMass Amherst has to beat a big fucking pile of raw fish.