These words are written by Dr. Eitan Crane while Dan Shechtman receives the Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden
But I actually want to salute three young guys, and I'm sure that Prof. Shechtman would not object to this:opponent in, ToA demure kafir ValJonathan Weintraub who this week publicly inaugurated the project of the Israeli spacecraft to the moon - Space IT - the only Israeli representative in the competition Lunar X prize Of Google.
I saw them last Thursday when they removed the Lot, together with the President of the country, Shimon Peres, and with Rona Ramon, excited and smiling and I couldn't help but be excited along with them.
The story began, so it is told, in a Holoni pub, when the three young engineers first came up with the idea of participating in the competition. All that is needed is to reach the moon, land on it, shoot an HD video of the landing and then a panoramic video of the landscape, move to a distance of at least 500 meters and shoot another panorama - very easy.
Dan Shechtman, an entrepreneur at the Technion runs a course for young entrepreneurs in which he encourages Technion graduates to initiate and build large and stable Israeli companies. I don't know if the three engineers attended this course, but his entrepreneurial spirit certainly pulsates in them, along with tremendous creativity and an "Israeli" ability to overcome challenges.
The main idea of the team is the use of existing products and miniaturization. The Israeli spacecraft is the smallest of the more than 20 competitors. It will be launched as a microsatellite from a commercial spacecraft, it contains almost no moving parts that can break down easily and it will perform the transition to a new site in the simplest way: it will take off and land again - without a complicated space vehicle.
But my salute is not only for the boldness, creativity and "audacity" but also with the secondary goals - to use this project as a lever to encourage scientific-technological education in Israel. The entrepreneurs aim to create in Israel a renewed wave of interest in space exploration that will push students to choose science and technology studies. A special curriculum is being built at the Davidson Institute for Science Education at the Weizmann Institute.
And that vision is contagious, as I saw on Thursday. The three young engineers harnessed many personalities and entities, from the Israel Space Agency and the Aerospace Industry, through the Weizmann Institute of Science and Tel Aviv University to the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ort Israel. The state has pledged to provide the maximum support that the competition regulations allow to receive from states. The rest should come from donations, and as the chairman of the space IL association, the entrepreneur and industrialist Yanki Margalit, said: "We are open to suggestions."
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