FROM GAZA TO MARS: LOAY ELBASYOUNI
On Monday 15th March 2021 Mark Seddon interviewed Loay Elbasyouni for Palestine Deep Dive.
Loay Elbasyouni is an electrical engineer and was electronic lead for the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter which recently landed on the Red Planet. This is his first English language video interview following his recent success. Loay is originally from Beit Hanoun, Gaza
Watch the full 27 minute interview on Patreon to learn the full story of his fascinating journey from Gaza, Palestine, to working with NASA in the U.S. on their latest mission. Read below some excerpts from the interview.
Loay Elbasyouni: “I am Loay Elbasyouni and I am an electrical engineer specialising in electric propulsion and power electronics. I was part of the Mars Helicopter team, it’s the first aircraft to fly outside of Earth… currently the helicopter is on Mars, we are waiting for the first flight.”
Mark Seddon: Well I am Mark Seddon and I am joined by Loay Elbasyouni who is not in a space craft, he is in Los Angeles and he has come to join us here at Palestine Deep Dive. Loay it is absolutely fantastic to have you, we are delighted. And congratulations for your fantastic achievement and that of your team at NASA. You have transfixed the world, you haven’t showed us yet life on Mars but that may yet be coming…
In common with so many people in America, you left a place where it was actually very difficult. However, when we are talking about Gaza, it is more than just very difficult because it is the case, for instance, that it is very difficult to leave Gaza, there is still not a proper airport, Gaza every five years or so gets flattened and then rebuilt again, with the most appalling human suffering that goes on. Tell us about your early days in Gaza, and the struggle to be educated I guess. Did you go to an UNRWA school? Tell us how it was at the beginning.
“I remember the first day I moved into Gaza, I walked in the street, ran into an Israeli Jeep, and everybody was running away hiding.”
Loay Elbasyouni: Yeah, so I am from Beit Hanoun. All the schools were UNRWA schools. So actually I grew up in Gaza after the age of 6. I remember the first day I moved into Gaza, I walked in the street, ran into an Israeli Jeep, and everybody was running away hiding. This was before the First Intifada, and then when I was in fourth grade when the First Intifada started, and it was a really difficult experience at the time because a lot of the days we did not even go to school. Our school was shut down and I remember in my middle school our school was suspended for a couple of months, and then growing up through the First Gulf War in the same time school was closed. A lot of the time you had to study on your own. Almost like homeschooling but my dad was too busy in the hospital, you know he’s a surgeon, so sometime I asked my dad some questions but a lot of time we had to really self-educate. But from there we finished, and going later on through the Oslo Peace Accords, so there were a little bit changes before I left. I came to the US in the 1998, so it was a little bit kind of peace time. So I visited Gaza in the year 2000 which was the last time I have been there. So it was really difficult in terms of getting access to the education, I mean I did go to an UNRWA school from grade 1 to grade 9, I mean we had good teachers.
Mark Seddon: What do your family think of your work for NASA and this extraordinary achievement of being part of that project which landed that craft on Mars.
Loay Elbasyouni: Both my parents are really very very proud. Everybody even my extended family is very proud. I don’t know if you have seen any of the pictures of people celebrating in Gaza? I think there was more celebration of the Perseverance than there was in the United States! Everybody is kind of excited. I mean, it’s really amazing. The fact that my parents are very proud of us that we all finished engineering, and my eldest brother is an orthopaedic surgeon in Germany. So definitely my dad is proud, yes he wanted us to all be doctors and surgeons but I mean he had a really rough time being a surgeon in Gaza. Working all the time around the clock, always cases, things, he saved many lives. I saw that, I didn’t really want to live in surgical operation rooms and I love electronics, so…
“I don’t know if you have seen any of the pictures of people celebrating in Gaza? I think there was more celebration of the Perseverance than there was in the United States!”
Mark Seddon: How did you end up at NASA, I mean did you write to them? Did they hear about you? Is there a particular skill set? Did they think this is the guy we need?
Loay Elbasyouni: So let me kind of explain a little bit. Honestly I always wanted to make a difference, so I believe that to change something in the world you need to be part of the change or you need to change something. I have really strong beliefs that we need to change the environment and to change things, the environment, our dependence on oils, things like that I really wanted to work in alternative energy, so early from college I wasn’t really focusing on the easiest jobs…
I worked with a local company here that worked on electric vehicles that actually won the contract with NASA. So I was working as part of that company so the helicopter was a joint development, so you know I worked with JPL, I worked with NASA, not directly for NASA, even though I had the option and offer from them afterwards. So this is how I really got into it.
“Honestly I always wanted to make a difference, so I believe that to change something in the world you need to be part of the change”
Mark Seddon: And can you give us some idea of what you’re hoping for to come back from Mars? What material is going to be picked up and transferred. What do you think we are going to learn that we might have dreamt about a few years ago but is now going to become a possibility because of this extraordinary work?
Loay Elbasyouni: One, well I mean, there are two different pathways. The rover basically is the fifth rover so there is a little bit more capability on this rover than the older one. And then there is the helicopter, so I focus on the helicopter, the helicopter - this will be the first aircraft to ever fly outside of Earth, and will actually fly in a very low air density. The density is about 1% of the Earth’s… the first flight on another planet. By achieving that now we learn that we have capability to fly on Mars or possibly another planet, which means that in future missions we could send, instead of sending a rover, NASA could send a helicopter. Another side, most of the missions are sometimes, people think we are humans trying to go live on Mars, but a lot of times studying space is like studying the past and studying the future at the same time. It gives us so much information about the past and the future. And then actually also helps us in many things from like, physics, you are validating experiments you have done based on theory on Earth. You understand that in physics, and other aspects like by understanding the past of Mars, can actually help us understand the future of Earth, especially now with global climate shifts, changes, things like that, can better help us understand our planet…
I don’t really talk too much about me being Palestinian from Gaza, I kind of lay low. But I am sure the people who know that I am a really hard worker, and a lot of my friends they know I worked really hard to get to where I am. I did a lot of fighting to get to every single stage. I mean I could have failed many times. I crossed the line and I had to cross back a couple of times. But definitely the people who have been through it and see it they definitely, you really have to fight a lot harder just because you’re from a certain place. Even when you apply to jobs, realistically they cannot discriminate based on your background, it’s against US laws but in the same time, people don’t react because they do not understand the situation, they do not even know what to think. So it’s a difficult situation.
Mark Seddon: There must be lots of young people out there, especially in Gaza and Palestine, who do look at you as something of a role model and think wow, if he can do it, so can we. There must be a lot of that.
Loay Elbasyouni: Yeah definitely, I mentor several different students and I always say the same things. If you have hope and you have belief then you always just need to continue, create a path and continue working on it no matter what is stopping your way. I do see a lot of people believing in that, I’ll be glad to be a role model, everything honestly is possible. We thought flying on Mars was impossible so…
Mark Seddon: Well of course everything is possible and we have a Palestinian-American Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, you met her I think? What did she say to you?
Loay Elbasyouni: She is an amazing woman. To be honest I haven’t really spoken to her after, I am a very big supporter of hers. Any Palestinian, Arabs or anybody from all over the world should achieve their goals.
Mark Seddon: Thank you so much for joining us today. I congratulate you for all that you have achieved, I suggest that President Biden hurries up and has you and the team round and gives you a great medal for all the work that you are doing because it is not just for the United State, it’s for human kind! But especially for people back home in Palestine, lives are tough, there’s been a great deal of suffering you know this more than anybody, and so for so many of them to see someone like you shining a light, from on a high in your spacecraft from Mars is a most fantastic thing. So good luck with whatever you do next and thank you so much for joining us!
Loay Elbasyouni: Thank you.
