[neveh-tech] Emailing: 01CND-ISRA
- From: "macam" <reuw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "nissan" <nzisken@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,"neveh-vc" <neveh-vc@xxxxxxxxxxx>,"Neveh-tech" <neveh-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,"neveh-l freelists" <neveh-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 20:44:19 +0200
Triumphant Return of Israeli Space Hero Turns Into Nightmare
February 1, 2003
International
- Africa
- Americas
- Asia Pacific
- Europe
- Middle East
National
Washington
Business
Technology
Science
Health
Sports
New York Region
Education
Weather
Obituaries
NYT Front Page
Corrections
Editorials/Op-Ed
Readers' Opinions
Arts
Books
Movies
Travel
NYC Guide
Dining & Wine
Home & Garden
Fashion & Style
Crossword/Games
Cartoons
Magazine
Week in Review
Multimedia/Photos
College
Learning Network
Archive
Classifieds
Book a Trip
Personals
Theater Tickets
NYT Store
NYT Mobile
E-Cards & More
About NYTDigital
Jobs at NYTDigital
Online Media Kit
Our Advertisers
Your Profile
E-Mail Preferences
News Tracker
Premium Account
Site Help
Privacy Policy
Home Delivery
Customer Service
Electronic Edition
Media Kit
Community Affairs
Text Version
Welcome, reuven2
Today's NewsPast WeekPast 30 DaysPast 90 DaysPast
YearSince 1996
Triumphant Return of Israeli Space Hero Turns Into Nightmare
By JAMES BENNET
ODIIN, Israel, Feb. 1 — He was the newest hero of a country
yearning for one, and in towns like this one across Israel today people
gathered in front of their television sets, happy and expectant, to watch the
homecoming of Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut.
Colonel Ramon's father, Eliezer Wolferman, was in a studio of
Channel Two television, part of a panel of family and experts gathered to watch
the landing live.
Another panel member, Eitan Ben-Eliahu, a former air
commander, was speaking about the air force's pride in the pilot's achievement.
That was when Channel Two's correspondent at Cape Canaveral sliced in, urgent
and grave.
"There's something going on here," he said.
Communication had been lost with the space shuttle Columbia.
No one here knew it yet, but in the morning sunshine above Texas the spacecraft
had begun burning up.
It is not too much to say that along with an Israeli flag and
a drawing by a child who was a victim of the Holocaust, Colonel Ramon, a
49-year-old father of four, carried Israel's dreams with him. He represented
the accomplishments this young country would prefer to dwell on — its
astonishing progress in technology and science — as well as its preferred
self-image, as an honored member of the family of nations, cooperating with
others to advance humanity.
Colonel Ramon, an air force pilot, had performed his share of
military missions, even taking part in the bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor
in 1981. But as he rose into space more than two weeks ago, he seemed to
transcend the conflict here, to slip the bonds of history, geography and
politics that can make other Israelis feel trapped.
"One cannot remain indifferent to the sight of an Israeli who
has the great privilege of being so detached from everything that happens here,
floating there in another world, like one of the angels," wrote Avraham Tirosh
in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest newspaper, on the day Colonel Ramon took
off.
Although he jokingly expressed concern about the possibility
of an Israeli settlement on the moon, Yasir Abed Rabbo, the spokesman for the
Palestinian Authority, had also set the conflict aside to wish Colonel Ramon a
safe return.
This evening, Ezer Weizman, the former president of Israel
and a former pilot, appeared on Israeli television to assess the first reports.
His wife, Reuma, had befriended Colonel Ramon, and she had been in regular
e-mail contact with him during his journey.
"The reports are not good," Mr. Weizman said. "I hope we are
all wrong. But I do not believe in miracles."
A brother-in-law of Colonel Ramon briefly appeared on the
radio, but he was crying so hard that the interview was abandoned.
In a statement early this evening, the prime minister, Ariel
Sharon, had not yet given up hope, saying, "The state of Israel and its
citizens stand at this difficult hour with the families of the astronauts and
Colonel Ramon's family, the American people and the U.S. government with a
joint prayer to God the creator that the astronauts will return safely to their
homes."
The Foreign Ministry sent a team to bring home relatives of
Colonel Ramon who had gone to the United States to welcome him from space.
Despite an election campaign and the grinding developments of
the conflict — or perhaps because of all that — Israelis had raptly followed
Colonel Ramon's mission. On instructions from Israeli schoolchildren studying
science, he performed an experiment on growing crystals in space. He monitored
the movement of a dust cloud over the Mediterranean. He said the Kiddush
service, celebrating the Sabbath in space, and he was awakened one morning by
mission control singing an Israeli song.
Workers at Israel's Army Radio composed and performed an
Israeli version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in Colonel Ramon's honor. "It's
a bummer, because it's very cold and everyone here is speaking English," the
lyrics ran.
The swell of public admiration was so great that his father,
in classic Israeli fashion, was quoted as wondering if a little more modesty
might not be in order.
Also writing in Yedioth Aronoth, the journalist Yaron London
noted, "We are not succeeding in preventing Palestinian teenagers from blowing
us up with bombs made with organic fertilizer, but we have our first Hebrew
astronaut since Elijah the Prophet ascended in a storm heavenwards."
But, he added, "Then again, what's wrong with a bit of joy?"
Colonel Ramon was born in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan,
but was raised in the Negev desert, in the city of Beersheeba.
Among the mementos he carried into space with him was a flag
from a Ramat Gan high school. And he took a T-shirt from a women's group
working against road accidents, because, he said, he believed that sometimes
the seemingly smaller but still crucial matters were forgotten.
Colonel Ramon's mother survived the Holocaust, and he went
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, to find the right relic of that
horror to take with him.
He picked a picture drawn by a boy named Peter Gantz, while
he was in the Terezin camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. It was a drawing of
the earth as Peter, from inside the barbed-wire fences of the camp, imagined it
would look from the moon.
Shuttle Lifts Off With an Israeli Astronaut (January 17,
2003) $
Amid Tight Security, Crew of Shuttle Focuses on Science
(January 14, 2003) $
National Briefing | Science And Health: Another Shuttle Delay
(August 24, 2002)
Delay Likely for Shuttle Mission With Israeli (July 20,
2002) $
Find more results for Israel and Space Shuttle .
Doing research? Search the archive for more than
500,000 articles:
Today's NewsPast WeekPast 30 DaysPast 90 DaysPast
YearSince 1996
Wake up to the world with home delivery of The New York
Times newspaper.
Click Here for 50% off.
Home | Back to International | Search | Corrections | Help |
Back to Top
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Permissions |
Privacy Policy
NASA
Ilan Ramon
Topics
Alerts
Israel
Space Shuttle
Create Your Own | Manage Alerts
Take a Tour
Sign Up for Newsletters
Other related posts:
- » [neveh-tech] Emailing: 01CND-ISRA
