Dr. Farouq Al Baz

Scientists are the Heirs of Prophets

They called him "the King"
The best words said about him were by "Alfred Worden", Astronaut, when he reached the moon he said: after the king's training I feel I came here before.

He was born on 1/1/1938 in Senbellawin, Dakahlia
He liked detective journeys and collecting stones samples.

Qualifications:

• B.Sc. (Bachelor of Science) in chemistry and geology from Ain Shams University, Egypt (1958)
• M.S. (Master's certificate) in geology (1961)
• Honorary membership in an important association (Sigma Xi)
• Ph.D. in Economic Geology from the Missouri School Of Mines and Metallurgy, Rolla, Missouri, U.S.A. (1964)

Occupations:

• He taught geology at Assiut University in Egypt (1958-1960)
• He taught geology at Missouri University in U.S.A.(1963-1964)
• He taught geology at Heidelberg University in Germany (1964-1966)
• During NASA's Apollo Program he was secretary of lunar landing site selection and chairman of astronaut training in visual observations and photography. (1967-1972)
• He became Research Director at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.(1973)
• Research director of experiences for landing observations from space and photography in Apollo-Sopoz program (1975)
• Egyptian president, Sadat, chose him as the scientific adviser to the government. (1978-1981)
• He joined Boston University to establish and direct the Center for Remote Sensing to apply satellite data to scientific investigations in the fields of archaeology, geography and geology ( 1986)
• Adviser to the American Space Agency NASA
• Director of the Space Research Institute at Boston University

Achievements:

He had two tasks in the first human landing trip on the moon:
1-Choosing places for landing on the moon’s surface
2-Train the Astronauts about the moon, its description in a scientific geological way
And how to collect samples and photograph it
President Sadat gave him the task of selecting suitable desert locations to set up new urban cities.
In 1973 he began studying the deserts of the Arab World using space images, particularly for groundwater exploration.

He is a member of numerous academies of sciences Worldwide such as:
An envoy of the Third World Academy of Sciences, TWAS in 1985, and became its Advisory Chairman of the Foundation for the preservation of Egyptian Antiquities
Member of The space science and technology board
Chairman of the Foundation for the preservation of Egyptian Antiquities. Member of The International Center for Physics academic at UNESCO envoy of the African Academy of Sciences .Fellow of the Islamic Academy of Sciences, Pakistan. A founding member of the Arab Academy for Science in Lebanon President of the Arab Society for the Desert Research
Member of the Board of Trustees of the American Geological Association
Member of The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies
Member of The Egyptian-American relations Assembly
Member of U S National Academy of Engineering

He always said:" Knowledge generates confidence; I do not say something until studying well"
He proclaimed the necessity of education and the need to develop it quickly
- He also proclaimed the importance of the study of groundwater,
- He said about Space projects: The United States of America had to raise the level of science and technology because of fear that the Soviet Union would be better than them. For this reason the establishment of the United States space agency NASA was set up to retain important advancement in the race with the Russians, Finnish and the world, are now spread centers of NASA in all parts of the United States of America, acting in coordination with American universities while the Arabic World has only Remote Sensing centers.
- He sees that to be an Arab cooperation for the launch of the Arab space as it available to the Arab world and there are many scientists able to launch this project were: Charles trembled and George Helou and Mustafa Shaheen.????...

Books:

He wrote about 12 books some of them are :
Apollo Superlunary
The desert and dry land
The Gulf War and the Environment
Atlas satellite images of Kuwait
Also he wrote a lot of articles for scientific magazines

Prizes and medals:

He had been awarded more than 30 prizes and medals such as:
The American Geological Association made a prize with his name" Farouk al-Baz prize for Desert Researches"
Apollo Achievement Award
The characteristics of the science medal
Training Action Team Award from NASA,
Award team learned Gamriat
Award team work in the Soviet-American Project Apollo,
Award Merite of the first class from President Sadat.
Award Golden Door from the International Institution in Boston
Characteristic son prize from his governorate
Special medal for science

This is only some highlights about this great man.

By Rania El Saadawy

References:

www.al-araby.com
www.arabiancreativity.com/albaz.htm
www.islamonline.net/arabic/science
www.wikipedia.org
www.arabdecision.org
Palastnewsletter: December, 2005