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Farouk El-Baz (, Pronunciation: ) (born January 2, 1938) is an Egyptian American space scientist and geologist, who worked with NASA in the scientific exploration of the Moon and the planning of the Apollo program. He was a leading geologist on the program, responsible for studying the geology of the Moon, the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions, and the training of astronauts in lunar observations and photography. He played a key role in the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, and later Apollo missions. He also came up with the idea of touchable Moon rocks at a museum, inspired by his childhood Hajj where he touched the Black Stone (which in Islam is believed to be sent down from the heavens).
He is married, has four daughters, and has seven grandchildren. He was a Senior Advisor to Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak.
El-Baz was a Research Professor and Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. He was an adjunct professor of Geology at the Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. He has since now retired but his work remains timeless and well regarded at the university
He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Geological Society of America Foundation, Boulder, Colorado, and a member of the Board of Directors of CRDF Global. He was also elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in Washington, DC (2002) for selecting the landing sites for the Apollo missions, and for pioneering methods of discovering subsurface freshwater from space observations.
In 1964, at the age of 26, he received a Doctor of Philosophy in geology from the Missouri University of Science and Technology after conducting research from 1962 to 1963 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From 1967 to 1972, El-Baz participated in the Apollo Program as Supervisor of Lunar Science Planning at Bellcomm Inc., a division of AT&T that conducted systems analysis for NASA. During these six years, he was Secretary of the Landing Site Selection Committee for the Apollo lunar landing missions, Principal Investigator of Visual Observations and Photography, and Chairman of the Astronaut Training Group. In addition to being the scientist who played a key role in helping NASA decide on the ideal Moon landing site for the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, El-Baz also served on the Apollo 15 rover mission in 1971. Throughout his time in the Apollo program, El-Baz joined NASA officials in briefing members of the press on the results of the lunar missions. His ability to simplify scientific jargon made his remarks on the program's scientific accomplishments often quoted by the media.
Soon after beginning with the Apollo Program, he was put to work poring over mountains of detailed photographs of the Moon's surface—a crucial step in selecting the most ideal and precise landing location based on lunar terrain, climate variations, and other factors. He also performed the same role for the famous Apollo 15 Lunar Roving Vehicle rover mission, and trained Apollo astronauts in the important skills of visual observation and space photography, in addition to instructing crew members on which rocks to collect and how to collect lunar soil. So pivotal was he to Apollo that in Tom Hanks' HBO TV-series, From the Earth to the Moon, El-Baz's role as an Apollo scientist and astronaut trainer was featured in a segment entitled, "The Brain of Farouk El-Baz," and a shuttle craft named El-Baz soared through the popular TV-series .
His outstanding teaching abilities were confirmed by the Apollo astronauts. While orbiting the Moon for the first time during Apollo 15, Command Module Pilot Alfred Worden said, "After the King's Farouk's training, I feel like I've been here before."
In 1973, NASA selected him as principal investigator of the Earth Observations and Photography Experiment on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), the first joint American-Soviet space mission in July 1975. Emphasis was placed on photographing arid environments, particularly the Great Sahara of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, in addition to other features of the Earth and its oceans.
Emphasizing the study of the origin and evolution of arid landscapes, he collected field data during visits to every major desert in the world. One of his significant journeys took place soon after the United States and China had normalized relations in 1979, when he coordinated the first visit by American scientists to the deserts of northwestern China. The six-week journey was chronicled in National Geographic and Explorers Journal. His research on the origin and evolution of the desert resulted in his election as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
From 1982 until he joined Boston University in 1986, he was vice president of Itek Optical Systems of Lexington, Massachusetts. During these years he supervised the utilization of the Space Shuttle's Large Format Camera photographs.
El-Baz was elected Fellow of the Geological Society of America, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and of the National Academy of Engineering (USA). In 1999, the Geological Society of America Foundation (GSAF) established the Farouk El-Baz Award for Desert Research, to annually reward excellence in arid land studies. In 2007 the GSAF also established the Farouk El-Baz Student Research Award to encourage desert research.
In April 2011, he joined the liberal Free Egyptians Party, founded by the telecommunications tycoon Naguib Sawiris.
These former water courses lead into depressions in the terrain, which he theorized must contain groundwater. His analysis of these data resulted in the location of groundwater in the arid terrains of Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), and perhaps Darfur (unless it dried up).
He called it the Kuwait River, which is more popularly known as Wadi Al-Batin, an extension of Wadi Al-Rummah. The Wadi Al-Batin river system would have been responsible for deposition of the Dib DiBa Formation (similar to an alluvial fan deposit, both morphologically and sedimentologically). This river system may have been active 2500–3000 BC.
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