Copyright Interesting Engineering
From NASA’s Mars helicopter to Blue Origin’s next-generation rockets, Loay Elbasyouni has built a career out of solving problems others call impossible. Now Senior Manager of Engine Electrical Design at Blue Origin and founder of the low-power AI startup AstraQua, the Palestinian-American engineer has worked across renewable energy, electric aircraft, and space propulsion—always driven by one purpose: using technology to improve life on Earth and beyond. In this conversation with Interesting Engineering, Elbasyouni reflects on his path from a curious kid who hacked radios to a leader in aerospace innovation, the lessons learned from startups and deep-space engineering, and the mindset needed to break through barriers, technical and otherwise. Interesting Engineering: It’s been a whirlwind few years, from helping make history on Mars to now leading engine electrical design at Blue Origin and diving into the startup world. What’s the common thread connecting these chapters of your career? Loay Elbasyouni: Honestly, a lot of it comes down to passion. Passion to work on things that actually affect humanity as a whole, and passion to be part of the solution for the future. Since I was very young, I’ve had a drive to tackle extremely difficult problems. My specialty has been power and energy, stemming from my interest in bringing alternative solutions to renewable energy. That passion got me into electric cars, then into electric planes. From there, I became really interested in rocket engines and the idea of electrifying them. That eventually led me to my current chapter, where I started my own company, AstraQua, and explored “Low-Power AI,” with the core question being: how can we make AI extremely low-power? For me, everything connects back to the same idea: how can we bring advanced technology to everyone in the world, make it more cost-effective, and make it more usable for everyone? Whether it’s been renewable energy, aircraft, space technology, or now computing and AI, the thread is the same. It’s about improving the world one technology at a time, taking something that seems hard, maybe even impossible, and figuring out how to make it work in a way that serves people everywhere. IE: Looking back, was there a specific moment, event, or influence that set you on the path to becoming an electrical and computer engineer? This really goes way back to when I was a kid. I was always intrigued by electronics. I was the kind of kid who took apart radios to see how they worked. By the time I was 10 or 12 years old, I had already started hacking radios. At 12, I even made my own little TV station. People around me predicted I’d be an engineer in the future. But it wasn’t just curiosity. I’ve always had that entrepreneurial side, thinking, “How can I take this thing I’m passionate about and turn it into something that matters?” I could have pursued other entrepreneurial ventures, but I wanted to work on something based on technology and innovation, something that would actually shape the future. That’s been my dream since I was a child: to make a real impact on the future. That dream is what got me into space-related work. And what’s interesting is that almost everything I’ve worked on has been dual-use technology. It’s technology that can help in space, but also improve life on Earth. That’s been a constant in my career, even though I’ve moved through very different industries. IE: You’ve described working on Ingenuity as a dream project. How did you get involved, and what did it mean to you personally? It was partly luck, but also about putting myself in the right places, working on cutting-edge technologies where people really need your skills. At that time, I was passionate about renewable energy. I was also vocal about what I saw as the problems with oil companies and the damage they were doing to the planet. That passion pushed me into electric cars. When the electric car market slowed down, I pivoted to electric airplanes. I started working on ultra-light, solar-powered planes. That’s where NASA approached us, because the lightweight, high-efficiency systems we were developing were a natural fit for something as challenging as flying on Mars. From the moment that opportunity came, I was hooked. It gave me a passion I couldn’t let go of. It defined a big part of my life because I committed to it. At that time, I had just started my first tech startup, but I put it completely on hold because I knew I’d be working on this helicopter for years (seven years, as it turned out). Being part of something that was being done for the first time (breaking a frontier of technology in a place where nobody thought it could be done), that’s huge. We humans put ourselves in boxes. We decide something can’t be done and then treat that as a fact. Flying on Mars was one of those boxes. If you’d gone back in time before Ingenuity and asked, “Do you think we could fly on Mars?” most people would have said no. But we proved it could be done. And now, people take it for granted, which is actually a sign of success; something that was once seen as impossible has become normal. That’s what excites me: when humans break through those perceived limits and open a whole new dimension for what’s possible. IE: You’ve seen engineering challenges from Mars to rockets to startups. Where do you think the biggest misconceptions lie in how the public or even engineers themselves view the discipline? The biggest challenge is the limitations we set for ourselves. In other words, the mental “box” we put around our thinking. Many people try to follow what has been done before. It feels safe. But if you’re repeating what someone else has already achieved, that’s not innovation. You must truly believe in what you’re trying to accomplish, and you must understand the fundamentals. You also have to be positive that it’s possible to overcome whatever the limitation is, whether it’s technical, financial, or something else. The truth is, most people around you won’t believe in what you’re doing, especially if it’s new or unusual. If you don’t have that belief yourself, it won’t happen. That’s true in both the startup and aerospace industries. In both, you have to trust that what you’re building is going to succeed, even when no one else does. When we worked on the Mars helicopter, we ignored the naysayers. People told us it couldn’t be done. SpaceX experienced a similar situation in its early days. People said they couldn’t build rockets that way, or that it was impossible to land them. But those limits are just the status quo. Once you start working toward your goal, even without knowing every step, the pieces often start to fall into place. But you have to start. Without that first step, you don’t move at all. IE: How are emerging technologies, like AI, robotics, digital twins, materials science, etc., reshaping the way you and your teams design and test propulsion systems today? I see two primary issues with how people utilize emerging technologies. First, just because something is popular or goes viral doesn’t mean it’s the best solution. Second, if you over-rely on tools, whether it’s AI or something else, you risk letting the tool decide the outcome for you, rather than using the fundamentals to guide your design. Everything in engineering ultimately comes down to mathematics, physics, and chemistry —the fundamentals. AI is just a tool. The term “AI” is often misused. Many people talk as if AI means only neural networks, but that’s just one probability-based method. It’s not the entirety of artificial intelligence. People often ask me why we didn’t use vision AI or GPU processing on Ingenuity. The answer is simple: it would have taken too much power, and we would never have flown. We succeeded by stripping away everything we didn’t need and focusing solely on what was essential. This is a constant challenge in engineering; people want to add features. However, upon examining the Toyota lean approach, it becomes one of the greatest companies by eliminating unnecessary elements and focusing on improving essential aspects. Digital twins are valuable, but they’re not new. We simulated the Mars environment on Earth to test Ingenuity, which is essentially a digital twin of the Martian environment. The challenge is when you’re going somewhere you’ve never been, like the Moon or the deep ocean, where you don’t have the data to build that twin. In such cases, different methods are required. AI often struggles in those scenarios because it needs training data. That’s part of why I started working on low-power AI: to develop methods that can operate in environments with scarce data and limited power, where traditional AI approaches are not applicable. IE: In your view, where does the engineer’s role begin and end in terms of ethical responsibility, especially when building systems that could impact entire planets or humanity’s future? It’s always the engineer’s responsibility to understand what they’re building, how it works, how it could be misused, and how to approach safety and functionality. Ethics exist at every level: how the technology is applied, how it’s copied or protected, and what its ultimate purpose is. That’s why purpose is so important. If your purpose is to improve humanity, principles will drive your vision and your passion, and those will guide your ethics. That also makes you more successful and happier in your work. For me, I’ve always chosen projects that help humanity and avoided those that could cause harm. Even if there’s a lot of potential in something, if it could be misused in a harmful way, I’d rather not be part of it. IE: After a year in the startup world, what did it teach you that a traditional aerospace path didn’t? It has taught me to sharpen my business skills, especially when working with people outside of engineering. That’s very different from working with other engineers. You have to change your vocabulary and approach. Being an entrepreneur is a whole other world. You don’t expect a paycheck; you work on belief and on getting others to believe in what you’re building. In a big company, you can take your time on decisions and run detailed trade studies. In a startup, you have to decide quickly and move forward. That applies to technology choices, intellectual property, market entry, and talking to investors, things I’d never done before. In just over a year, we’ve built a team, landed customers, partnered with UCLA, and won a NASA award —seven months after incorporating. That growth is possible only because of the passion and purpose behind what we’re doing. In a startup, you wear many hats. You’re still the engineer and the architect of the technology, but you’re also the leader, the marketer, the cheerleader. You’re constantly representing the new identity you and your team are building together. IE: What advice would you give to a young engineer who wants to work on world-changing technologies but doesn’t know where to start? Start with your passion, but be flexible. Your first role may not be your dream role. You might have to enter through a side door. Build your foundation in science and math, and prove yourself before expecting to get the big design work you want. Understand the process. Know what it takes to make something manufacturable. Stay current. Technology moves so fast that you need to keep learning. Keep a student mindset. Teach others. Teaching reinforces your own learning. Don’t base your goals on past programs, such as the Space Shuttle or F-35. We won’t build those again. Advanced drones, new rocket engines, and AI will mark the future. Focus on the greater purpose of what you’re working on. Engineers are building the future, and that’s where your motivation should come from. IE: Whether on Mars, in orbit, or here on Earth, what’s the legacy you want your work to leave behind? I want to be remembered as someone who never gave up and kept trying new things. I’ve transitioned from telecom to automotive, then to electric vehicles, to wind energy, to aerospace, to semiconductors, and now to AI. Sometimes you have to pivot. If you stay technical and keep your skills sharp, you can transition into any area that is growing. That’s where the exciting opportunities are, and that’s where you can make the most impact.
