Farouk El-Baz Geologist

Egyptian-Born Geologist Helped Put Men on the Moon

Farouk El-Baz has

made a career of look-

ing into the distance

and seeing what other people

don’t notice.

El-Baz is a geologist by training,

and much of his work has con-

cerned space: studying the sur-

face of the moon for NASA, and

studying the Earth from space-

based telescopes to find lakes and

rivers buried under deserts. In

fact, deserts have become some-

thing of a specialty of his.

He also can see a future Egypt

alongside the old: a solar- and

wind-powered development cor-

ridor in the desert to the west of

the Nile Valley with new cities

and factories, a new highway and

a rail line. They’re all needed, he

says, because otherwise Egypt’s

expanding population will

squeeze out agriculture on the

narrow strip of fertile land along

the great river.

El-Baz was born in that fertile

land, in the Nile Delta town of

Zagazig, in 1938. After college,

he went to graduate school in

the United States, where he has

spent the bulk of his career. (He

remains an adjunct professor

at his alma mater, Ain Shams

University in Cairo.) He is direc-

tor of Boston University’s Center

for Remote Sensing.

But El-Baz rocketed to promi-

nence with NASA’s Apollo pro-

gram, where from 1967 to 1972

he helped put astronauts on the

moon — “some of the best times

of my life,” he has said.

“We did it, and we did it beau-

tifully, and we proved that

American ingenuity can jump-

start anything and can do it, and

do it on time and do it very well,”

he said.

El-Baz led the committee that

chose lunar landing sites, which

had to be flat enough for safety

but interesting enough for scien-

tific study. He also was in charge

of training the astronauts as

space photographers.

“When the Apollo program

ended in 1972, we began to try

to apply what we learned from

the moon to the study of the

Earth from space. This is when

I began to look at the Earth’s

features in satellite images, and

naturally, I emphasized deserts,

and having come from Egypt, I

emphasized the Arab deserts,”

El-Baz said. His work has led to

the discovery of groundwater

resources in Egypt, Oman, the

United Arab Emirates and else-

where. He was the first recipi-

ent of the World Water Masters

Award from the International

Desalination Association.

“Water is life, and we know that

we will need more water as popu-

lations increase and the econo-

mies develop,” he said.

Embassy of the United States of America PROMINENT ARAB AMERICANS

Farouk El-Baz points to a chart showing attendance density at Washington's Million Man March as determined by his depart-ment during a news conference in Boston, Friday morning, October 27, 1995. Photos © AP Images

Rashid Abdu, Physician

Ahmed Ahmed, Comedian

Moustapha Akkad, Film Director

Michael DeBakey, Heart Surgeon

Farouk El-Baz, Geologist

Gaida, Singer

Kahlil Gibran, Artist and Poet

Joseph Haiek, Publisher

Salma Hayek, Actress

Casey Kasem, Radio Broadcaster

DJ Khaled, Rap Music Artist

Khalid Khannouchi, Marathon Runner

Ferial Masry, Community Activist

Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space

Naomi Shihab Nye, Author

Ameen Rihani, Poet

Edward Said, Author and Activist

Kareem Salama, Singer

Betty Shamieh, Playwright

Rashida Tlaib, Politician

Elias Zerhouni, Medical Vanguard

Ahmed Zewail, Chemist

Prominent Arab Americans

U N I T E D S TA T E S D E P A R T M E N T O F S TA T EB U R E A U O F I N T E R N A T I O N A L I N F O R M A T I O N P R O G R A M S

Prominent Arab Americans Featured in This Series

El-Baz

Gaida

DeBakey

Akkad

Abdu

Ahmed

Gibran

Haiek

Khaled

Rihani

Shamieh

Shihab Nye

Kasem

Zewail

McAuliffe

Said

Zerhouni

Masry

Hayek

Tlaib

Khannouchi

Salama

Published May, 2012