On June 29 and 30, 2002, I interviewed the first (and for now also the last) Israeli astronaut at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The movie "Flight 107" will be broadcast on 13/12/2002
In a relaxed conversation with him on the grass in Houston, Ilan Ramon explains his modest vision regarding the question of what he will do when he returns from space and
Avi Blizovsky
Wants to return to Ramat Gan * Ilan Ramon wears the space suit for training
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/ramoninterview1.html
Brigadier General Ilan Ramon has not yet decided what he will do when he returns. According to the advice and recommendation of the former president, Eizer Weizman, he wants to succeed in the mission first and only then will he think about what to do next. One of the items he takes with him into space was the flag of the Belich school in Ramat Hen where he studied. "I grew up in Ramat Chen, and I will probably also live there when I return to Israel," he explains.
In a casual conversation on the grass, he refers to the fact that as a pilot his face is not allowed to be seen and suddenly he becomes, as they say, a celebrity. It doesn't go well with his humble nature.
When we planned the film, it was the most stressful period of the countdown. On June 28, there were three weeks left until the July 19 launch of the shuttle Columbia, and the window of opportunity for this interview was just one day before the team's traditional press conference where the astronauts answer CNN's various questions about the flight. However, a few days before, cracks were discovered in two of the shuttles - Discovery and Atlantis - in the pipe that carries the fuel from the external tanks to the shuttle itself to give it a push into space. Although these are cracks up to half a centimeter wide, it is enough for tiny fragments from these pipes to be pumped into one of the engines to stop its operation and cause the spacecraft not to reach orbit. In the optimistic scenario, the spacecraft may detach from the rocket and make an emergency landing. Most likely it would end up like the Challenger disaster in 1986.
Finally, it turned out that the other two spaceships - Columbia, on which Ramon was supposed to take off, and Endeavor were affected by the malfunction. Now we are waiting for the construction of new spare parts and maybe before that for a redesign of those parts to uproot the problem from the root.
Ramon and his friends may be disappointed, but they feel relieved: "The postponement of our flight, of all flights in fact, shows that NASA takes the issue of flight safety above all else. And they are not interested in this section of safety, launch dates and other issues. They first make sure that every shuttle is launched safely 99.9 percent, not 101 maybe even XNUMX percent. When this problem was discovered, they basically decided to ground the entire fleet. They asked not to launch any shuttles until they fully understood what the problem was. And that's about where we are now. They do chemical and mechanical analyzes to understand what the problem is and what it means, and if it needs to be fixed, how to do it. And that's the situation right now. Therefore, we do not currently know what the launch date is. It will be the fastest but after they understand what the problem is and take care of it. Of course, no one is happy about delays, but paradoxically in this matter I am very happy, because it is proof of how seriously NASA takes the issue of safety. And every time they ask me if I'm scared, I explain it and here's the proof of how seriously they take it.
Willie McCall, the deputy commander and pilot of the shuttle takes it even easier: "The training was very massive, especially in the last weeks before the launch. Now we can reduce the tension a bit, maybe even take a little vacation." McCall, by the way, promised our team to let Ramon fly the shuttle in space (not during takeoff or landing) - if Ramon asks for proof of this, it is on the tape.
Flight 107 is an unusual flight and more reminiscent of shuttle flights from the 16s and early XNUMXs. It is particularly long - XNUMX days and is entirely dedicated to experiments. From the reference to a whole day of Ithnoim parties, it seems as if this is a shuttle of the Israeli Space Agency. All the press conferences referred to either the Israeli experiment or its main operator - Ilan Ramon.
"One clear evening someone from the Air Force Officers Department called me, which is personnel. I was busy at work and trying to finish the day, to finally get home. He told me "you want to be an astronaut" I told him stop confusing my brain. I have no time for jokes. I want to finish the day and get home.
He told me: "The commander of the Air Force asked us to locate an astronaut." I asked for time to consult with my wife. I replied in the morning. Later, a normal staffing process will be done in the Air Force like any other position, and I was selected for this process.
The message of Dan Halutz, today the commander of the corps, was short. He was my direct supervisor at the time. He was in this discussion, and I was in my office. When it was decided that I would be the astronaut, he came out, picked up the phone and said to me 'Ilan, ya astronaut' and that's how I learned that I was chosen to be the astronaut.
Interlude: Houston, we have a flood
Houston is not the nicest place in the world to stay. At least in the summer. It is at the latitude of Cairo and the heat is oppressive, but unlike Cairo, the humidity is also oppressive. The proximity of the Gulf of Mexico causes incessant rains. When we got there there were thunderstorms and lightning. Nevertheless, Ramon has been staying there for four years and will surely continue to stay there for many more months. What are you doing there for so long?
"In the current situation today at NASA, flying after four years is very fast, not very slow. Maybe in Israel it seems like a long time, but the time constants here are completely different. In the team with me, three friends are flying, which is their first flight from the course before. They fly after six years and from their course there are people who have not yet flown. So if we forget the constants of time for a moment, four times is fast today.
When an astronaut arrives after being selected, he begins a basic course where he learns for about a year and a half the shuttle and its systems on its moorings. including theoretical studies and simulators. The ferry is a complicated and complex vessel. It is built on redundancy. Electrical system There are several of these, so if one breaks down there are at least two more that work.
The connections between the systems are very, very complex, in addition, the possibility of the astronauts handling the shuttle in space is very, very high and complex. Much more complex than handling a plane, and I compare it to a fighter plane where you can do some operations but they don't go into the guts of the systems. We as astronauts can enter and this requires us to study the systems much more deeply. Everything is built on the fact that even though the flight itself has contact with the ground, and they help us, it is built on the fact that there will be no contact with the ground, that we will be able to do everything completely independently. It takes a year and a half.
After that, the astronauts enter the pool, a pool from which the candidates for the flight crews are selected. After a team is assembled for the flight, training for the flight itself begins. Learn everything related to the specific ferry, because there are small differences between the ferries. In addition, the team begins to train specifically for all the characteristics of the flight itself - for example, the experiments or the construction of the International Space Station. It takes over a year and sometimes even two and a half years. In this process you learn new things there that you did not learn in the basic stage. The study and preparation process is long and complex, the shuttle, if you can define it, is a sequence of many, many small details and that's why they also work according to books and not based on memory because you can't remember so many things, so it takes a long time.
By the way, in the case of flights to assemble the space station or to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA built a huge pool, so big that it takes a month to fill it.
Part B of the interview
A special knowledge before the flight
Israel in space
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