How A Palestinian American Astronaut Celebrates Space Exploration

As Palestinians continue to fight for their rights in Israel, those around the world are making a mark in society and are being encouraged to do so

She is Palestinian-American is origins and is now in news for her latest twitter hashtag, 'YallaToTheMoon' where Nujoud Fahoum Merancy has pledged to help Nasa plan its Artemis missions. Her latest hashtag is a gesture of extending help.

Ms. Merancy started to make news in 2019 when she posted her official Nasa photo, in which she wore a blazer embroidered with Palestinian tatreez, a traditional cross-stitch that she purchased during a visit to her father’s hometown of Nazareth. 

She is now a leader for one of the Artemis Missions which are used to fly astronauts to the moon. At 43, she is the chief of exploration mission planning at the US space agency and has been working in the space sector for more than two decades.

Her support goes to the Artemis 1 Mission flight which is an unmanned flight around the moon and will test the performance of Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.

As Palestinians continue to fight for their rights in Israel, those around the world are making a mark in society and are being encouraged to do so. There is a sense of solidarity that comes about when such a feat of achievement is celebrated.

Speaking to the media, she has said, that, “It's important to me and to a lot of us that it represents all of humanity and Artemis itself is international because we have international partners.” Ms Merancy, a mother-of-two, earned her bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle.

From there, she joined the aerospace company Boeing to work on the International Space Station.

She then started working on the development of Orion, the spacecraft launching on top of Nasa's mega Moon rocket on Saturday that will fly around the Moon — and one day carry astronauts.