Farouk El-Baz
Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian-American space scientist who helped plan NASA’s Apollo Moon exploration—training astronauts in visual observation and photography and advising on landing-site selection. He later founded and leads Boston University’s Center for Remote Sensing, applying satellite data to deserts and groundwater.
Farouk El-Baz EOTW #2 (7 October 2025)
From 1967–72, El-Baz played a pivotal role in Apollo: organizing and interpreting lunar imagery, guiding landing-site selection, and training astronauts in what to observe and photograph on the Moon.
His own accounts and interviews detail how those photo libraries and field-training trips shaped mission science. Since 1986 he has been the founding director of Boston University’s Center for Remote Sensing—named a NASA “Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing” in 1997—where he applies space-borne radar and imagery to Earth problems, including revealing ancient river systems and potential water capture in Sinai’s Wadi El-Arish.
The Geological Society of America’s Farouk El-Baz Award for Desert Research underscores his influence on arid-lands science.