Special to WorldTribune.com

ABU DHABI — The U.S. space agency has been searching for water in
Kuwait.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has been working in
Kuwait in a project to locate water resources in the desert sheikdom. The
project, paid mostly by the Gulf Cooperation Council state, employed
advanced radar and aircraft to survey the desert of northern Kuwait.

“I’m proud of the Kuwaiti interest in investing in science and
education,” NASA scientist Essam Hegy said.

On Oct. 17, Hegy, a staffer at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory,
addressed an audience in Kuwait City on the joint project. He said Kuwait
was investing more than $100 million out of the total project cost of $167.2
million, much of it meant to produce an advanced radar to detect water.

The system was identified as a 40 megahertz airborne radar-sounding
prototype and supplied by the California Institute of Technology and
France’s Institut de Physique du Globe. The system was developed to explore
the subsurface area of Mars in search for fresh water acquifers.

The project would also establish an information center in
Kuwait. NASA was working with Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research as
well as Kuwait Air Police, the latter which provided a helicopter equipped
with the radar.

“The cost of this project is $167.2 million,” Hegy said. “Of this
amount, NASA’s budget is $60 million and the rest will be paid by Kuwait to
participate in producing part of the radar equipment and to establish an
Information Reception Center, which will be located in Kuwait.”

So far, the project has demonstrated that the radar could locate
underwater aquifers in the desert of northern Kuwait. Officials said the
radar results were later validated by ground measurements performed by KISR.

“By mapping desert aquifers with this technology, we can detect layers
deposited by ancient geological processes and trace back paleoclimatic
conditions that existed thousands of years ago, when many of today’s deserts
were wet,” Hegy said.

  Down to earth: NASA looking for water in northern Kuwait desert, Essam Hegy, Kuwait Air Police, NASA jet propulsion laboratory, U.S. space agency