Charles Elachi is one of America’s top rocket scientists. He is also a Lebanese immigrant. The director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which builds and operates spacecraft that explore the far reaches of the Solar System, says the goal of the 5,000 scientists and engineers he works with is no less than “expanding the knowledge of humanity.”

But Elachi also remembers fondly the skies of his childhood in Lebanon, where his parents and teachers instilled a lifelong love of science and curiosity.

“I was fascinated by space,” he says. “You look at the sky in Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley and it’s a beautiful sky, so you wonder.”

After pursuing an undergraduate degree in Grenoble, France, Elachi traveled to the U.S. where he earned a master’s degree and then a doctorate in electrical sciences from the California Institute of Technology, and joined JPL in 1970. He became JPL’s director in 2001, and worked on various projects including the Space Shuttle program, the Cassini space probe that is exploring Saturn and its moons, among many others.

Elachi laughs when asked whether he could have accomplished in Lebanon what he has in the U.S.

“Clearly having come to the U.S. gave me unique opportunities to be able to do this,” he says.

He recalls in particular the extremely complex landing of Curiosity, a rover now exploring Mars that had such a challenging landing maneuver that the moments before it safely arrived on the red planet were dubbed the seven minutes of terror.

Elachi says that the combination of the spirit of exploration and desire to defeat impossible odds, as well as meritocratic progression is uniquely American.

“I don’t think I could have done what was accomplished here, between the rovers we landed on Mars, the missions we sent to Saturn, to the comets, and what we’re doing in Earth orbit, I don’t think that could have been accomplished anywhere else,” he says.

Elachi says that the resources and talent are there in the Middle East. What he believes the region lacks is for government and society to provide the resources to young men and women to pursue those talents, and more democratic societies where people can collectively make decisions on what to do with resources.

“You see what happens when people from Lebanon come to the U.S. and we have the opportunity,” he says.

One way to accomplish this is through increased investments in science and research in universities, as well as for companies to spend more on development.

Elachi disagrees with the argument that people like him should stay in the region in order to limit the brain drain of Arab scientists leaving for the West.

“People go to where the opportunities are,” he says. “So the solution to that is for the Middle East to provide opportunities. You cannot just tell smart people who are ambitious and want to explore to stay home and then you don’t give them any opportunities to do that. That will not work.”

Elachi says Lebanon has an advantage because society places a huge premium on education, and could encourage wealthier nations in the region and Western companies to invest in research centers there. But he said the country must first address its chronic instability.

“People are not going to invest on a country that cannot decide on a president,” he says. “Lebanon has to create an environment of stability which will attract other countries.”

Elachi, who sits on the board of trustees of Lebanese American University, shies away from giving specific advice to young, would-be scientists from Lebanon, but says they must retain some connection to their home, even if they decide to leave.

“All that I recommend is that if you leave Lebanon, to keep some connection either through helping the university or educational system or school or kids at school, because in the end it is people who are educated who are going to lift the country,” he says. “Even if you decide to leave, make sure you keep helping.”

Actually, he does have another piece of advice: Follow your passion.

“Usually what I tell young people is you can’t plan exactly your future, just do things you’re excited about and do them well,” he says.

That passion was evident in the video of the JPL command center, where Elachi was, during the landing of the Curiosity rover.

“It was one of the most challenging engineering endeavors ever done by humanity,” he says. “Those few minutes of the landing were like having 10 years of your life in front of you and you’re either going to be successful or it’s going to be a failure and the 10 years are gone.”

Fortunately, the 10 years did not go to waste. Now Elachi wants to send humans to Mars.

Over 20 years, he envisions progressively challenging missions in which rovers are sent to Mars, land, collect rock samples, and return to Earth as a dry run for sending humans there. Meanwhile, NASA is developing missions that send humans farther and farther from Earth – the next step is to send a human on a mission to orbit an asteroid, then to orbit Mars, and finally to land on the planet.

The mission is challenging because of the psychological and physical impact on a human living in zero gravity and exposed to radiation away from Earth for the two years it would take to go to Mars and back.

While Elachi believes in the value of using robots to conduct science in space, he insists human spaceflight is essential to nurture a spirit of exploration and to eventually establish a permanent presence for humanity on Mars.

“That inspiration given to young people is worth every cent that goes into the space program,” he says.

Elachi disagrees with those who criticize spending on the space program, saying the money goes to jobs here on Earth and fuels scientific advances that have improved humanity’s lot.

Besides a permanent presence on Mars, Elachi says he is most excited about projects to better monitor the Earth’s climate and the search for planets orbiting other stars that may have conditions that support life.

But the project he is most excited about is the exploration of the moons of the solar system’s outer planets, particularly Enceladus and Europa, orbiting Saturn and Jupiter, which appear to have subterranean oceans.

There is a mission scheduled for launch to Europa in 2022, though it will be unable to drill through the ice sheet covering the planet and to the oceanic depths below that may harbor life. Elachi said Europa ought to be a priority of space exploration.

Elachi said the discovery of life there would have “dramatic impact,” as it would show that life is common and evolved independently of life on Earth.