Missing home: Loay Elbasyouni showing his space photos at his home in Santa Monica.He also helped design Ingenuity, which made history by flying on Mars for the first time in 2021. — Los Angeles Times/TNS
FROM his modest home office in Santa Monica last month, Loay Elbasyouni prepared to review rocket engine designs during a meeting on Blue Moon, a spacecraft that in the not-too-distant future will launch astronauts to the moon to explore the surface of its southern pole.
Nasa’s Artemis V mission, scheduled for 2029, is fifth in a planned series of efforts to return to Earth’s lone natural satellite for the first time since the Apollo programme. And it’s not Elbasyouni’s first foray into space exploration.
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Near but far
Loay Elbasyouni: 'I sent a helicopter to Mars, but now I can’t even send food or water to my parents in Gaza.' — Photos: Los Angeles Times/TNS
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Loay's father, Mohammed (pix), was born in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp in 1948, the same year Israel became an independent state in what Palestinians call the “Nakba” or catastrophe.
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Loay has been desperately working to evacuate his parents from war-torn Gaza.
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Elbasyouni emigrated to the US in 1998 on a student visa and attended the University of Pennsylvania.
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