Bush at the memorial service: they knew the risk was great, and accepted it with joy * In a message to the families of the dead, the president said: Their deaths were not in vain; The captain of the navy paid tribute to the dead in Hebrew and English; NASA: We may have misjudged the assessment that the damage to the wing is not significant
After my death he was eulogized as a true believer
There was a man and they saw he was gone.
This man died before his time
And the song of his life in the middle stopped.
In sorrow he had one more psalm
And here the psalm is lost forever
With these words from the national poet Haim Nachman Bialik, Rabbi Harold Robinson, a military rabbi with the rank of major in the US Navy, opened the first state memorial service for the seven astronauts who perished in the Columbia shuttle disaster on Saturday. The ceremony was held on Tuesday at eight in the evening Israel time, 12 noon local time in Houston.
Rabbi Robinson continued, alternately in Hebrew and English, to pay tribute to the seven crew members who perished in the crash on Saturday. At the end of his words he said: "The Lord knows the souls of all those who are protected by Him. From heaven all mankind is one people. The place will comfort you. You are the people of Israel. All of us inside the mourning gate of Zion and Jerusalem."
After him, NASA Director Sean O'Keefe spoke: "We owe it to the families and the American people to check what happened and correct the errors, while we try to discover the mysteries of the universe. We must continue to strive forward, and push human knowledge."
"He was the perfect fighter pilot, with a sparkle in his eyes," said NASA's chief astronaut, Kent Rominger, about Ilan Ramon at the ceremony. In his words, Rominger referred to each of the seven crew members, and told with humor about the many experiences they went through in the long preparations for the mission.
Bush at the memorial service. "Their mission is almost complete, and we lost them so close to home"
President Bush said at the ceremony: "Their mission is almost complete and we lost them so close to home. It's a terrible loss. The nation is united with the families in grief and pride. Today we remember not only the tragedy but the lives of seven heroes with goals and achievements."
The president also referred to each of the staff members in his speech. "Ilan Ramon flew over his home, Israel," said Bush, "he said that the silence in space makes beauty stronger and hopes that the silence can spread to his country. He was a patriot, a devoted son of a Holocaust survivor father who served his country in two wars, and a family man..."
"The American Hal program will continue," said Bush, "we do not choose this task, it is written in the hearts of the human race, we are part of creation trying to understand it all. We send the best among us into the darkness and pray that they will return. They left in peace for the sake of the entire human race that owes them a great debt. We also pray for us as a nation, that we can not only pray for the tremendous loss, but be inspired by their actions. In America, Israel and everywhere in the world, people will devote themselves to the discipline of research."
President Bush mentioned each of the astronauts in his speech, and about the Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, he said that he was "a patriot, a loyal son of a Holocaust survivor father, who served his country in two wars. When he flew over his house he said, 'The silence in space increases the intensity of beauty, and I only hope that this silence can one day spread in my country.'
Bush said: "Their mission is almost complete, and we lost them so close to home. The women and men of Columbia had flown more than 6 million miles, and were minutes away from landing. The loss is terrible and terrible, but the families are heavy. The nation shares in your sorrow and your pride. Today we will remember not just one moment of tragedy, but seven life stories of achievements. Leaving the earth and gravity behind is an old dream of mankind. Each of them knew that such noble deeds are not exempt from great risks, and they gladly accepted it."
President Bush addressed the grieving families and told them: You are not alone, you will find comfort and you will be able to get through this difficult time. The children who miss their parents, know that they were proud of you, and you can be prouder. Their last days were spent looking down at the Earth. In every country they saw there from the ferry they will remember their names. I offer the respect, appreciation and gratitude of the entire American nation."
After the ceremony, Bush was supposed to meet with the families of the astronauts, including Rona Ramon, the Israeli astronaut's widow. Bush delivered a message to the families of the dead, according to which their deaths were not in vain. The Jewish community of Houston, of which the Ramon family was a member, held its own memorial service last night for Ilan Ramon and his fellow astronauts.
The ceremony was concluded by seven bell tolls, in memory of the seven crew members and a missing plane, an Air Force tradition to mark pilots who fell in the line of duty. Later, President Bush and his wife are scheduled to have a personal meeting with the families of those who perished, including Rona Ramon.
NASA is re-examining the handling of hazard alerts
NASA is re-examining the handling of news of a possible malfunction and alerts received about a fear of damage to the left wing of the Columbia shuttle, which crashed on Saturday before its landing. Yesterday it was learned that one of the scientists warned, in a memo he sent two days before the landing date, that the damage to the left side of the shuttle is severe and that in such a situation it is impossible to make a safe landing of the shuttle.
NASA leaders yesterday dismissed the claims as if they had ignored the problem with the left wing. They said that they conducted comprehensive tests, at the end of which they concluded that the impact of the insulation fragment on the left wing during the launch is "insignificant" and does not constitute a safety problem for the shuttle. However, Ron Ditmore, the director of the shuttle project at the agency, said that the accident investigators, who determined that there was no safety problem with the shuttle, were not aware of the scientist's reservation when making the decision. He indicated that now the comment of that engineer will be examined again. "The engineers may have been wrong. The matter is being looked into," he said.
"We want to know if we made wrong assumptions. We want to know if we were not conservative enough, and if we made mistakes," he added.
NASA's space flight director, Bill Reedy, said that on the 12th day of the mission, four days before the landing, an assessment of the impact was made and it was determined, in the opinion of all ranks at NASA, that it is not an impact that requires any action or avoidance of the landing . NASA experts further clarified that even if it was clear to the flight managers that there was a problem with the insulation tiles of the plane's wing, there was no way to fix this problem when the shuttle was in space. Reedy noted that although damage to the insulation tiles is the leading cause currently being investigated, there is still no absolute certainty that this is the cause of the crash.
Preliminary results of the DNA tests of the remains of the bodies found on the ground are expected to be received today. The identification officials already know that these are the remains of four different bodies, but it is not clear which of the astronauts. At the same time, the effort to collect all the wreckage of the shuttle continued in Texas and Louisiana.
