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ISRAEL Fledgling program loses identity
By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 2/3/2003
Ramon was one of seven astronauts who died on board the space shuttle Columbia on Saturday, and, as the first Israeli to travel into space, he had become a hero to many of his fellow citizens. He was mourned widely. Some students and scientists choked up as they described working with Ramon on Columbia's research projects. A high school that collaborated with Ramon in space announced that it would rename either a science wing or the school itself in his honor. Ofer Hirsh, a 17-year-old junior at the school in Kiryat Motzkin, a Haifa suburb, said that Ramon's visits with students and his training for the shuttle launch -- which received extensive publicity in Israel -- had kindled a love for science in many young Israelis like himself. Ramon deserves credit, Hirsh said, for a generation who will now go on to pursue university studies in science.
''When I met him he was very curious about our experiments and wanted to take part. He was not a snob, not `I'm an astronaut, I'm better than you,' '' said Hirsh, who helped devise a project on the growth of crystals in space that Ramon brought with him on the shuttle. After President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel traded condolences by telephone Saturday, US Ambassador to Israel Daniel C. Kurtzer attended Sharon's weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday and offered a warm public tribute to Ramon and Israel. ''In paying tribute to these heroes, our two nations can draw on deep reservoirs of courage, character, and fortitude,'' Kurtzer said. ''Even during this period of mourning and reflection our gaze is drawn inexorably toward the same aspirations that drew Ilan Ramon and his colleagues into space. Just last week, Colonel Ramon said from space, `The world looks marvelous from up here -- so peaceful, so wonderful, and so fragile.' '' An official at the US Embassy later called the remarks important as they aligned the United States and Israel in deeply personal terms at a time when the American government is acting as mediator between Israelis and the Palestinians, while at the same time considering a war against Iraq. Sharon also mourned Ramon as a model Israeli and as a man who represented a step forward for the nation. ''In my conversations with Ilan, I became acquainted with a man of values, who deeply loved this people and this land, a man who should not have been taken from us so suddenly -- along with the hopes, dreams, history, and future of all of us -- to a place higher than we can realize,'' Sharon said. He pledged that another Israeli astronaut would go into space someday, then asked for a national moment of science. As scientists mourned the death of their colleague, they also expressed concern that the momentum generated by Ramon for space research in Israel might abate. Moshe Fogel, a spokesman for the education and science ministries, said the nation did not have another Israeli lined up to train for a shuttle mission. ''There were hints from Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush that this is not the end of the cooperation,'' Fogel said. Some government and university scientists said yesterday that, politically, Ramon made two important contributions to Israel. He accorded the nation's stature in the international science community and allowed it to play a role on the world stage as a ''normalized'' state, in the words of one scientist, at a time when Israel is struggling with the Palestinians and when Israeli scientists have been targeted for a boycott by some European academics who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And moreover, scientists said, as an admired air force colonel and now an astronaut, Ramon was an appealing spokesman for Israel's small but growing space research program. Some space scientists had derided Ramon's contributions before the shuttle flight; one told Ha'aretz newspaper that the endeavor was ''pathetic'' and another compared it to ''fireworks on Independence Day -- a total waste of money.'' But Yuval Ne'eman, chairman of the Israel Space Agency and a two-time former minister of science, said yesterday that Ramon's impact as a prominent figure in the cause of space research had been so great, he was preparing to tap Ramon to be the next director of the agency. ''Seeing him and the way he talked to the public, it was clear that he was setting the imaginations on fire,'' Ne'eman said. Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com.
This story ran on page A9 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
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ERUSALEM -- The death of national hero Ilan Ramon resonated in the political and scientific communities here yesterday, as the US ambassador, in an unusual address to the Israeli Cabinet, called Israelis and Americans ''brothers indeed on earth and in space,'' and some Israeli researchers despaired that the nation's symbolically important space program had lost its public face.
