Lieutenant Colonel Yitzhak Mayo, the replacement of the astronaut, Ilan Ramon, said today that it is still too early to talk about another Israeli astronaut. Mayo also said that NASA should be allowed to investigate what happened. In an interview with Channel 2, he also said that it is still too early to determine that NASA knew while the shuttle was hovering in space that it was going to crash
Mayo: There will be an Israeli astronaut, but there is nothing to talk about now
Lt. Col. (res.) Yitzhak Mayo (right) and Lt. Col. Ilan Ramon in July 1998 during training in a model of a ferry. Mayo gave up his position as "number two" because of the distance from his family
A few months ago, Israeli astronaut Lt. Col. Ilan Ramon called from the NASA space agency facility to Lt. Col. Yitzhak Mayo's house in Yehud. Ramon asked Mayo to send him a personal item to take with him into space. Mayo was chosen by the Air Force as Ramon's "number two", as a backup in case Ramon could not fly. Together they spent a year training at NASA. "Ilan's offer was justa," says Mayo, "I thanked him, but it didn't really speak to me and I rejected the offer." That was the last time they talked.
"The surprise from the disaster was great because
The successful takeoff and because everything worked so smoothly and properly," says Mayo. "Until today, all the malfunctions in ferries were during take-off or in flight. So the general feeling was good. No one expected that the failure would develop in the moments before landing."
Mayo refuses to deal with the details of the incident that are emerging in the media. But according to him, "there are faults that cannot be fixed in the ferry". Regarding the hypothesis that a tile that broke off and hit the wing caused the failure, Mayo says, "There is no tile reserve in the shuttle. Each tile is numbered and each tile has a fixed position. Today it is not possible to repair tiles. Why? You should ask NASA."
Mayo estimates that NASA did not know about the malfunction. He says that if the malfunction had been discovered during the launch, and the control team in Houston had recommended a landing, it would have been possible to act according to a scenario known to the team. The scenario is activated two minutes after takeoff. At this point, the shuttle is above the Atlantic Ocean, in the space penetration phase. Then a decision called TAL (transoceanin abort landing) can be made. which means "transoceanic crash landing", in Spain. "In the case of such a decision, you need to act quickly and most importantly, find out, identify and decide. There is not much time. It's a matter of a few minutes. We practiced this scenario and four other possible emergency moves in simulators," Mayo said.
Mayo, 48, a resident of Kfar Hitit, is an Air Force 16 navigator. He is an only child, one of the few who served in the Air Force air crews. At the age of 26, he was released and completed a master's degree in physics studies at Ben Gurion University. He worked as a diver
In the construction of the port of the power plant in Hadera.
At the age of 34, he returned to the Air Force and served as a navigator at the Air Force's flight test center. At the end of 1997 he accepted the offer to become an astronaut. After a series of selections, five candidates were determined, of which Mayo was determined as Ramon's "number two". Among the deciding criteria were: his academic studies and his experience in flight experiments.
In 1998 Mayo, his wife Rinat and their three children left for Houston, together with the Ramon family, for training at NASA. The ferry flight was postponed and the Mayo family returned to Israel.
Mayo was later called up for another training period in Houston, but he did not want to be separated from his family for a long period of time and the family was reluctant to separate from Israel in the middle of the school year. Since 2000, Ramon has been in Houston alone without an Israeli number two. A few months ago, Mayo was released from the IDF.
In an interview with Ynet a few days before the launch, Mayo said: "Ilan's flight is as good for raising national morale as winning a game in the World Cup. But the launch of the Ofek 5 satellite was much more important."
Yesterday, Mayo told "Haaretz" that if Ramon could not fly into space, an American astronaut would replace him. When asked about the idea of the first Israeli astronaut (if Vermon for any reason could fly and Mayo no longer serves as his replacement, AB) Mayo said, "I don't know. That should be asked of the Air Force. It was probably not that essential to them."
On the possibility that he will be the next Israeli in space, Mayo said, "It is too early to talk about it. On Saturday there was a painful and traumatic event. This is an event worth thinking about carefully and not running. Will be an Israeli astronaut in the future. But there's nothing to talk about now."
"I was more surprised than most people," Mayo said of the moments he lost contact with the shuttle. "I knew the preparations, and the landing seemed very natural to me. What happened seems taken from an illogical script. During the training, you learn about all the possible faults and dangerous points, and how NASA solved them.
"I felt that it couldn't be, that something was wrong here. The ferry can't be late. But when I looked at the pictures, I realized that the chance of being saved is very low. It is true that when you grow up in the Air Force you are used to accidents, but it was hard for me to digest it."
On the possibility that the malfunction would have been discovered at an early stage and then the crew could have been saved, Mayo said: "The only evacuation I know of is by parachute, and that too is very limited. The scenarios for the actions of the astronauts in the shuttle exist, but they are also limited.
The maximum is to close the doors in an emergency, when they do not close by themselves. I don't know of a situation where a part like a wing or belly is fixed.
"To carry out repairs with the help of another ferry - as far as I know, it is not realistic. But anything can happen. In Apollo 13 they managed to keep the astronauts alive for several days and they landed safely."
On the possibility that he will go into space on one of the next flights, Mayo said: "The issue of the flight ended with me some time ago. Today, less than a week after the disaster, it is too early to discuss whether I will fly. There are so many things to do and learn. You have to deal with great pain and loss."
Even without the crash, another Israeli launch into space was not planned
The space shuttle Columbia disaster will not have an impact on the Israeli Space Agency. As of today there were no practical plans for another Israeli launch into space. Much data from the Israeli experiment was lost in the crash, a small part of which was transmitted to NASA's "Goddard Space Center" in Washington while the shuttle was still in space.
Last night, the Israeli agency did not know any additional details about those published by NASA. The Minister of Education and Science, Limor Livnet, said that the ministry and the agency "are following the events through continuous contact and receiving updates from NASA and are praying for the safety of the shuttle crew."
Yesterday, the scientists of the MAIDCS experiment, the Israeli experiment to study dust over the Mediterranean Sea, said that they were able to observe with certainty only one dust storm over the area. The storm was observed about three days before the end of the space shuttle Columbia mission. This was stated on Friday by the project officer on behalf of the Air Force, Major M. According to him, there are "at least three more crossings, which we saw in an uncertain manner, and there is no confirmation about them".
The experiment over the Mediterranean Sea included data collection from the shuttle, and at the same time from a plane that flew into the dust storms and collected data and samples of the dust. The main purpose of the experiment, led by researchers from Tel Aviv University, is to collect data on desert dust and assist in the calibration of NASA research satellites that are currently in space and collect information about climate processes.
The shuttle also tried to photograph dust storms in other areas, without cross-referencing data from the plane, said Major M. According to him, "over the Atlantic Ocean we have a lot of data, in the last few days there have been big dust storms".
Due to the many delays in the launch of the shuttle, the experiment was done in the winter. Dust storms are not common this season and even when they do occur there are not many chances to watch them due to cloud cover. Therefore, the team added another experiment, which also aroused interest among scientists who are not connected to the project, and whose purpose is to observe flashes of light, which appear above the clouds and are called "elves". This phenomenon is still not fully understood.
"Success here is beyond expectations," said M. "Already from the first night when we filmed lightning storms, we managed to photograph the phenomenon. We have several dozen recorded events, of elves, and similar phenomena." The astronauts on the shuttle also collected data as part of four other experiments, in which researchers from Israel were partners.
* An experiment led by Prof. Dan Gazit and Dr. Solma Gazit from the Hebrew University, tested the effect of the subgravity conditions in space on bone cells.
* Two experiments by the Israeli Center for Space and Aviation Medicine: one tested the activity of "good" bacteria in a compound created by the "Materna" company; The other tried to study the development of bacteria in the subgravity conditions of space.
* Students from Ort Kiryat Motzkin tried to grow blue-white crystals in a ferry.
Mayo's lecture at the Pathway conference, October 2002
