In his words and actions, the astronaut Ilan Ramon represented the children of the earth
4.2.2003
By: Helen Sherry Motro *
Ilan Ramon was close to 50 years old, but the experience in space awakened the child in him. For him, the most enjoyable thing in space, he said, is the ability to levitate. At a press conference held last week, Ramon said, in response to a question from an enthusiastic high school student: "It's like an act of magicians."
Ramon's journey around the Earth, together with his six teammates, was symbolically accompanied by other children: a five-year-old boy, whose innocent question accelerated the idea of an Israeli living in space; a drawing of a 14-year-old boy who perished in Auschwitz; A tiny Torah scroll hidden by a boy from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; and a chemistry experiment designed by Israeli high school students and which Ramon carried out during the flight.
It's hard not to draw inspiration from the message of brotherhood that Ramon sent: "There is no more appropriate place to emphasize the unity of human beings than on a journey through space. This applies to any country, Arab or not; We are all human beings." According to Ramon, there was no tone of national fanaticism: "An Arab already flew in the XNUMXs, so I am not the first (from the Middle East). I represent the State of Israel and the Jews, but I also represent all our neighbors."
Still, Ramon lifted the gloomy spirits of his countrymen when he looked at his homeland from space and could not avoid saying that from such a high altitude "Israel looks just like it appears on the map: small but beautiful."
It is possible that the initiative to add Ramon to the "Columbia" team began with an event that took place a few years ago in Washington. In 1995, Israeli diplomat Jeremy Issacharoff visited the city's aviation and space museum in the company of his five-year-old son Dean. "Why isn't there an Israeli astronaut too," Dean asked. The question was assimilated in his father's mind, and he began to circulate the idea through the diplomatic channels. Coincidentally, at that time Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres was in Washington for a meeting with President Bill Clinton, and the Israelis also brought up non-diplomatic issues in the talks. At the end of that week, Clinton announced that Israel would participate in the US space program. And so, when Columbia was launched into space, Dean Issacharoff, who had turned 12 in the meantime, watched proudly from Jerusalem as Ramon realized his dream.
Beyond patriotism and slogans, Ramon's initiative to take with him into space objects that belonged to children who perished in the Holocaust was the most moving thing. Ramon, who was only allowed to take a few personal items with him, chose to take with him two items from the World War - in which his grandfathers perished, and his mother was saved.
14-year-old Peter Ginz was an avid reader. In every book he read, he wrote not only his name, but also the motto he believed in: "Science above all". While in the Theresienstadt camp, Peter drew hundreds of drawings in an attempt to escape from the grim reality. He sends from the camp to Auschwitz, where he perished. The paintings he left behind have survived. Ramon chose to take with him into space a picture that Peter had drawn: the image from the moon of the earth shining in the sky.
Ramon was not a religious Jew, but he chose to carry with him to space also a small Torah scroll, which another boy hid in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. At the press conference, Ramon excitedly presented the Torah book, which symbolizes the survival of the Jewish people "from the darkest days to the days of hope and faith in the future."
Space travel captures the imagination of most children. On January 16, I watched the spectacular takeoff with my teenage daughter. Her eyes glistened as she followed the first launch she saw from a pod. It was my daughter who broke the news to me, shocked, the other day. "Mom, they lost the space shuttle," she said, finding it hard to believe.
The horrific accident teaches the children a lesson about the possibility of failure. Ilan Ramon said that he enjoys thinking about the possibility of continuing to float forever, looking down on our beautiful world. He and his colleagues will do so forever.
* The author is a journalist and teaches at the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University
The price of progress - the editorial of "Haaretz" on Monday, 3/2/03
The loss of the space shuttle "Columbia" with its seven crew members is one of those defining moments for humanity, the leading nations in space exploration, and the only ones who put their lives on the line for the benefit of this effort. The spaceship that commemorated the discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus, also participated in the constant search for new worlds. The risk inherent in such journeys, in heights and speeds and gravity conditions that humans are not adapted to, is realized only rarely, thanks to the knowledge and labor of many; But when a rare malfunction occurs there is almost no escape from it.
The American investigative bodies that will try to find out the causes of the disaster will most likely find an error or a chain of errors, which ended terribly in the explosion of the shuttle. The conclusion then, as after the Challenger shuttle disaster 17 years ago, will require additional care for the safety of the aircraft and a renewed effort to develop a means of escape for the crew in the event of a disaster. It is not correct to conclude that in order to avoid such disasters it is better to stop traveling to space, and the death of the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, should not lead to Israel's disconnection from the space program.
Every accident in itself appears in retrospect to be avoidable, but the phenomenon of accidents cannot be prevented. Since the dawn of time, man has been confronted with the unknown. The air and especially the space is inherently dangerous for flying. Without the attempts made by the balloon developers hundreds of years ago and those of the Wright brothers a century ago, humanity would have floundered in its place.
The exciting adventures of a generation or two ago, from the launching of the first cosmonauts and astronauts for flights around the earth to the six landings on the moon, in the late 60s and early 70s, seem to belong to another era. Now the flights into space, sometimes for long months on a multinational space station, were routine, and the main dispute is over the replica budgets required to continue the flights, their destinations and their safety. This is primarily an American debate, but also an Israeli one - Israel has the ability to launch satellites, and has advanced scientific and engineering personnel. Now, to her heart's content, she also has her first and bitter experience of a disaster in space.
Space - as a space for Israel's security and for science used for the benefit of its citizens, for the benefit of the geographical area in which it resides, and even for the well-being of the world's population - should not be neglected. It is permissible to examine the relationship of the investments in different initiatives - not the satellite mountains, whose importance is essential, as the flag mountains and the symbol and the political signaling accompanying an Israeli passenger in an American spaceship. It is appropriate to perpetuate the memory of Ramon, a pioneer who fell on his watch in the new book that President Kennedy spoke about, in an Israeli space center or in one of its products - and to see him as a stepping stone, which others will follow, with eyes open enough to see the dangers and to minimize the price of progress, but with the determination to pay it. Sometimes, for the sake of this generation and future generations.
