[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 63 (Monday, April 25, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E577-E578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IN RECOGNITION OF DR. CHARLES ELACHI, DIRECTOR OF THE JET PROPULSION 
                               LABORATORY

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 25, 2016

  Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my good friend Dr. 
Charles Elachi, the Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 
who plans to retire this June after 45 years of service to the people 
of the United States of America.
   Dr. Elachi's journey to become the Director of JPL is a source of 
inspiration and encouragement to every young person in America who 
dreams of making great discoveries or changing the world around them. 
Charles Elachi's life is a true Horatio Alger story. As Dr. Elachi 
wrote recently in an essay for the Smithsonian, ``How did a boy from an 
ordinary, middle-class family in a little Lebanese village come so far? 
The answer is deeply connected with what I believed as a child and I 
still believe today: The United States is a land of freedom and 
opportunity, where anything is possible, and where dreams can and do 
come true.''
   Growing up in the small Lebanese town of Rayak, Charles remembers 
meeting ``quite a few American visitors. Over and over again,'' he 
said, ``I was struck by their open, positive attitude toward life, 
their attitude that anything is possible, no holds barred, regardless 
of family background, religion or color.'' As a boy, he loved watching 
the stars at night, and he says watching those stars helped inspire him 
to study hard at school. He was so successful at his studies that he 
distinguished himself as Lebanon's top science student, an honor which 
enabled him to attend any university he chose.
   He first earned a degree in physics at the University of Grenoble, 
France, and then earned a degree in engineering at the Polytechnic 
Institute. When it was time to decide on graduate school, those early 
positive memories of optimistic fearless Americans inspired him to go 
to California, where he earned admission to the California Institute of 
Technology. He fell in love with southern California, and earned a 
master's degree and a doctorate in electrical sciences from Caltech, a 
master's degree in geology from UCLA, and a master's degree in business 
administration from the University of Southern California.
   His lifelong dreams about exploring the stars and his exceptional 
work in college brought him to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1970. 
He first worked on Earth observing missions, and then moved on to 
planetary exploration and astrophysics. His scientific and engineering 
gifts and his natural talent as a leader led NASA to select Charles as 
the Science Team Leader on the Space Shuttle's Imaging Radar. JPL 
recognized his unique skills and assigned him to be a key part of the 
Magellan Imaging Radar which was so essential to visualize the surface 
of Venus through its permanent and total cloud cover for the first 
time.
   NASA and JPL were so impressed with his work that he was then chosen 
to lead the radar science team for the extraordinarily successful 
Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. Once again, his skill with orbital 
imaging radar systems proved essential in visualizing the surface of an 
alien world otherwise forever hidden beneath a permanent worldwide 
cloak of clouds--Titan. Charles' work as the leader of this radar team 
was a vital part of selecting the site for humanity's first successful 
landing on an alien world beyond the moon and Mars when the Huygens 
spacecraft landed on Titan in January, 2005. The Cassini orbiter 
continues to thrive far beyond its predicted lifespan and return 
groundbreaking scientific discoveries about Saturn, its ring system and 
its immense family of moons.
   Charles Elachi was appointed as director of the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in 2001, and under his visionary leadership, JPL scientists 
and engineers have discovered: conclusive evidence of water ice and 
long lasting rivers and lakes on Mars; created history's most detailed 
gravity field and ice maps of Earth; returned history's first samples 
and close up images of a comet; landed three complex and highly 
successful spacecraft on Mars; blasted the first artificial crater in a 
comet to learn what comets are truly made of; landed the first 
spacecraft on Titan and sampled its surface and atmosphere; discovered 
lakes and seas of liquid methane on Titan using Charles' imaging radar; 
created the first deep space telescopes to see the universe in 
ultraviolet and infrared; returned our first true close up images of 
dwarf planets and asteroids; created the most detailed map ever made of 
the Moon; discovered millions of black holes; discovered the first 
Earth like exoplanet in the habitable zone of another star; discovered 
conclusive evidence for immeasurable millions of exoplanets in our 
galaxy; set a still growing record for driving a spacecraft across the 
surface of another world with the unstoppable Opportunity lander on 
Mars; discovered the most luminous galaxy in the universe; discovered 
conclusive evidence for liquid water today on the surface of Mars; 
discovered immense geysers of frozen water erupting from a worldwide 
ocean beneath the frozen surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus; and laid 
the groundwork for what most planetary scientists predict could be the 
first discovery of life beyond Earth in the vast oceans of Europa.
   These discoveries will be remembered throughout human history. 
``Only the United States could do this!,'' as Charles vividly remembers 
a foreign visitor saying on the night a rocket sky crane gently landed 
the Mars Science Lab on the surface of Mars in August of 2012. Charles 
was reminded that night of another day he felt the same sort of immense 
pride in his nation when he took the oath to become a United States 
citizen in August of 1979. ``In this nation of immigrants,'' Charles 
wrote for the Smithsonian, ``especially in science and engineering, 
where people try new things and solve problems, they don't ask where 
you're from. Instead, they ask who is the best person to help overcome 
a challenge.''
   ``In other countries, you just don't find this merging of cultures, 
this melting pot. I think diversity truly enriches our society and 
makes the United States more intellectually and economically powerful. 
People from different backgrounds bring different ideas and thought 
processes. The best ideas rise to the top. I see that happen at NASA 
and JPL all the time. How else do you land a rover on a planet no human 
has ever visited, or design a robot to capture an asteroid?''
   Charles tells us that ``I believe this uniquely American spirit of 
optimism, the sense that anything is possible for anyone, is a key 
reason our nation is the world leader in space exploration. . . . That 
wonderful, very American spirit of opening doors, of pushing the 
frontier, of pursuing the seemingly impossible--that's what exploration 
is all about. When the United States landed on the moon and Neil 
Armstrong took that one ``small step'' on the surface, when we landed a 
rover on Mars, when we deliberately collided with a comet to study its 
interior, all those milestones made people here feel deep pride as 
Americans. But I also believe and hope that they made people around the 
globe feel deep pride as humans, pride in all the positive and amazing 
things we can accomplish when we work together.''
   Charles Elachi embodies everything that has made America the most 
prosperous and powerful and freest nation in the history of the world. 
His life and the scientific discoveries he has left us all as his 
legacy will inspire us and our children and grandchildren and their 
descendants for all time. Charles Elachi and his extraordinary team of 
scientists and engineers have made our lives as Americans and as 
members of the human race far, far richer because he and his team have 
dared and succeeded in achieving mighty things.
   All Americans owe this wonderful good man an immeasurable debt of 
gratitude. We will reap the harvest of his visionary leadership for 
many, many generations to come. It is my great privilege to be his 
friend and to stand here today, on behalf of the people of Texas I 
represent who love NASA and its mission, and on behalf of the United 
States Congress, to thank Charles Elachi for his devoted service to 
America, to NASA, to JPL, to science and for helping lead humanity in 
our greatest era of discovery. May God always bless you and you and 
your family, Charles.

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