Farouk El-Baz in his interview with “El-Qatara” .. A country that does not feed itself is a ruined country

From America, Dr. Farouk El-Baz, the Egyptian scientist, spoke to us via Zoom, and as he is called the Moon Master, as he headed the geological planning team for the Apollo mission to land on the moon.

In this interesting dialogue, he talked to us about how he excelled in astronomy and lunar research, which is far from his field of study, and his search for a job since he obtained his doctorate.

He also sailed with us about NASA research, and told us about the closed room in the Pyramid of Khufu and the development corridor.. and he i declared his opinion on education and Egypt’s current economic situation, and other files he opened with us
In addition to that, he revealed to us his dream for the futureand to the text of the dialogue .

What are the latest scientific discoveries and studies that NASA is working on now?

In fact, NASA will not stop working, as it has a space project to collect scientific information about the planets of the solar system, as NASA will not stop science and collecting information, and it is currently collecting information about the planet Mars because it is very similar to Earth, we want to know how it is and what its differences are from Earth.

Do these studies indicate that the possibility of life on Mars can be discovered?

We have not reached this point yet, but NASA’s project aims to learn as much as possible about all the environmental characteristics of Mars so that we can determine whether life is possible or not, but there are many other solar groups that can support life. NASA’s major project is looking for planets or suns that could have an environment similar to Earth’s, stressing that there are likely to be thousands of planets and suns similar to Earth, so NASA is currently studying and examining these groups in an attempt to find planets that could support human life, as their environment could be similar to Earth’s.

How does geological research affect our understanding of historical events and cultural monuments?

Geological research is very important in everything on Earth because it works to understand the Earth itself, and the more we understand Earth, the more we understand our environment, the better our lives in this world will be.

What are the major challenges facing geologists today? And how can they be overcome?

Learning about the history of the Earth, the layers that exist under the hot tongue and from which explosions and volcanoes emerge, so we study whether they are cooling or not? And if they are cooling, how thick are they cooling? And if they are not cooling, what could happen in them? Because these are very big and very deep things, but we do not have the scientific means to discover them and identify them accurately until now.

In light of the current scientific and technological progress, do you see a bright future for Earth Sciences? What are the fields that interest you in the future?

Earth Sciences must continue, because Earth Sciences are the foundation and they are what taught us how to use natural resources and we learned about the Earth’s resources such as oil, and this has been the life of man, as man has been working like this all his life, your ancestors the queens had people who dug rocks and knew their importance and knew silver and extracted silver from rocks, and this means that we must understand our environment very well in order to know how to benefit from it.

Does this mean that the first civilization to know about astronomy was the ancient Egyptian civilization?

We do not know about any other place that did this, except in Greece, but they knew what Egypt had provided in astronomy at that time, and all people and all kings were trying to understand the Earth and its nature, so this was a large part of the life of the ancient Egyptians.

And did the science of geology in ancient Egypt contribute to the development of life for the ancient Egyptians?

There were people who would go to the mountains and Sinai to explore. At that time, they were not called geologists, but they were indeed geologists. They would search inside the rocks and from there they learned to extract minerals such as gold. They went through stages: first, exploration, then identifying the material, then mining, then using it. Quarrying and granite were first dated to ancient Egypt and were extracted from Aswan.

Where did the Western Desert Development and Construction Corridor project get to? Which you launched based on tracking groundwater paths? Are you following the project yourself now?

I did not see anything that started with the project, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, himself spoke to me about the project and asked me for a copy of the book on the project, and I gave him a copy of the book on the development corridor, and the book explained all the details, but it has not been implemented yet, and they are still studying it because in my opinion they have other problems that they must work to solve first, then wake up and look for expansion.

What are the other problems that Egypt must work to solve at the present time… from your point of view?

In my opinion, I see the food problem in Egypt as the most important problem, as Egypt has expanded construction on agricultural lands, agricultural land “we made it asphalt and it was ruined and customs that were not useful for agriculture”, and we no longer have food, and I have to buy food from banks, “I buy food from abroad from China, Russia and America” I buy food from different countries now.

History is full of events about the greatness of Egypt. The Caesar of Rome used to say, “There is nothing better than the bread that comes from Egypt. There is nothing better than that which comes from Egypt.” In history, after the period of the ancient Egyptians, in an era when all the kings and heads of state were bragging about the food that came to them from Egypt, “Now we beg for money from Europe and then we pay them to buy food. What a disaster.” “A country that does not feed itself is a ruined country.”

Because as a country I don’t know how to get the food I need, I want someone to help me from outside Egypt, to borrow from him and give me the money and add extra to it, today we find America flexing its muscles in the middle of the world? America’s strength lies in the fact that it has enough food and it is overflowing, and it sells food to other people.

Is there a solution to recover part of the wasted agricultural land area?

We can fix what was lost and spoiled from now when we start working on reclaiming the lands in the desert, and that starts the day we start the development corridor, the land reclamation begins because each of the sub-corridors coming out of the development corridor, each one provides the land with an environment suitable for agriculture.

And the development corridor project, if implemented, does not need a lot of money, as I suggested to them that each governorate build a street 20 km west of the Nile River, so each governorate builds that street on the western side from the governorate’s budget, then the government’s turn comes to build a street that connects all the corridors together in one street, and thus I have created the foundation for the development corridor.

What about windmills and solar panels in Egypt? Why are they not used optimally, despite the abundance of solar energy in our country? While Western countries with much less energy than us use it?

Egypt’s main “disappointment” is that we do not use our land optimally. Twenty years ago, a group of scientists from Germany came to Egypt and said we want Egypt to give us 50 km by 50 km in the Western Desert. We will cover them all with solar panels and we will provide enough electricity for Egypt from the extracted energy and sell the rest to European countries. But Egypt refused, and Egypt has not yet used solar energy. What it currently does does not cover 1% of Egypt’s energy needs.

After the Corona crisis .. There were reports saying that the world’s climate changed as a result of the world stopping for a period during the crisis, how true are these reports?

The climate is always changing, it is not constant throughout the year, the climate, winds, rain and the earth rotate, and the rotation of the earth changes everything, the climate is always changing, and we must deal with the changes all the time.

Tell us about your research on the closed room of the Khufu Pyramid? And what are the new details that we as Egyptians do not know about the Khufu Pyramid?
The Khufu Pyramid still holds great secrets, it was in two pits in the southern part of the pyramid, Egypt opened the 1954 version and the head of antiquities at the time was Professor Kamal Al-Mallakh, and there is still a lot.

What do you think of the new secondary school amendments to make the second foreign subject outside the total and cancel the geography subject?

“Disappointment” How can I close myself off like this while the world around me has become a small village and has become open to each other? The Egyptian person must know how to speak the language of others so that people abroad know what they are saying and doing in Europe, China, India and various countries. The closure did not give us a chance to live. All countries have opened up to the world. “We cannot close ourselves off.” The world has become open to each other. America cannot close itself off. America opens its arms to anyone from any country in the world as long as it benefits the world.

Tell us about the letter 110 that reached NASA and what came before the letter?

Before the letter 110, there was a guy named “Farouk El-Baz” who had a doctorate and was happy and living, but he had no job to live on. He was married and had a daughter, and he needed to get a job opportunity just to support his wife and daughter, so I had to work as a “jobber”. “It’s not shameful to be a jobber”. I kept sending job application letters to all the institutions.

I sent 121 applications, and none of them responded except the letter I sent to NASA, even though the NASA job was far from my specialty. I had obtained a doctorate in manganese mines, which is far from the NASA job that requires studying the moon. At the time, I did not know anything about the moon. After I was accepted for the job, I devoted myself to studying the moon. I spent three months studying books and maps until I reached the conclusion that there were 16 sites. I informed the NASA staff about what I had reached. There were 46 geologists working with me on the program. I explained the 16 sites to them and gave them examples of that, and how we could go to them and learn from them some of the characteristics of the moon. Despite their not knowing me or me knowing them, we cooperated together to benefit people.

What do you say to young people after all this suffering in searching for work?

I tell the youth that I wrote letters to 122 sites, in addition to sending them to 46 geology departments, and none of them responded to me. The last response I sent to an organization that helps Apollo is the one that was responded to. I applied for 176 jobs, and whenever I did not find one in one place, I went to another. In the end, I accepted the job that I did not expect to come to me, and I worked in it, even though I did not know anything about it. I did not know anything about the geology of the moon. Therefore, I tell the youth to keep searching and continue striving.

What is Dr. Farouk El-Baz’s dream?

I dream of seeing happy people, because I let them study as they wish, and they did not study geology, but they are successful in their lives.