January 12, 2003|By Michael Cabbage, Sentinel Space Editor
JERUSALEM -- Israel's first astronaut is set to ride to orbit aboard space shuttle Columbia this week on an odyssey steeped as heavily in politics and religion as in science.
Officially, Israeli air force Col. Ilan Ramon's mission is to conduct a dust-monitoring experiment designed by Tel Aviv University scientists and take part in other research during the shuttle's 16-day flight. Unofficially, his planned launch Thursday is a very public demonstration of close U.S.-Israeli ties at a time when the war-torn Middle East appears more volatile than ever.
Ramon's flight was inspired in 1995 by an innocent question from an Israeli diplomat's young son. Since then, it has become a watershed event for Jews here in Israel and around the world. The significance isn't lost on the 48-year-old former combat pilot, whose mother survived the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
"When I first started this, I didn't realize how big it was for Israelis and Jews," Ramon said. "I am a Holocaust survivor's son, an Israeli pilot and, now, an astronaut. People can't believe it. It's very emotional for me also."
The soft-spoken engineer already is a celebrity in Israel. Endless newspaper and television coverage has made Ilan Ramon a household name. His decision to observe the Jewish Sabbath and eat kosher food in orbit is transforming him into a national icon.
Israeli politicians and schoolchildren alike have been dazzled by Ramon's personal appearances to discuss his upcoming mission. "The Year of Space" was proclaimed in 2002, partly in his honor. A postage stamp was issued commemorating his launch.
While the recognition has put Ramon well on the way to folk-hero status at home, many fear it also has made him an inviting target for anti-Israeli terrorists. Even so, he downplays concerns about safety.
Ramon insists he has complete confidence that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is doing everything possible to protect him and his six shuttle crewmates.
"For Israelis, it is part of our lives," said Ramon, a veteran of two wars. "I've been in the air force for 30 years. I'm used to being a target."
INTERNATIONAL INTIMACY
The idea for Ramon's flight began with a 5-year-old boy.
Jeremy Issacharoff, the former political counselor at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, had taken his son, Dean, to visit the National Air and Space Museum. The elder Issacharoff had been brainstorming on new initiatives for an upcoming summit meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and President Clinton.
As the two toured the museum, Dean stopped at a space-shuttle exhibit. He noticed a number of non-U.S. astronauts, including a member of the Saudi royal family, had flown on the shuttle. His question was simple: "Daddy, why isn't there an Israeli astronaut?"
The proverbial light bulb flashed on above Issacharoff's head.
"I wasn't sure how to broach the idea," said Issacharoff, now deputy director for strategic affairs at the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem. "I thought they might think I had gone a bit nuts. I said `My kid had this idea. What do you think?' "
Issacharoff got a reply from Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's ambassador to the United States, a few days before the summit: Go for it. Following discussions with the National Security Council and NASA, Clinton announced after a meeting with Peres that an Israeli astronaut would fly on a future shuttle mission.
NASA and the Israel Space Agency signed a cooperative agreement in 1996. Both sides agreed there needed to be a legitimate scientific purpose behind any Israeli astronaut's trip to orbit.
"We felt it was not worthwhile just to send a guy up with flags and mementos to say `I was there,' " said Akiva Bar-Nun, a planetary science professor at Tel Aviv University and former director of the Israel Space Agency. "NASA felt the same way."
FINDING AN ASTRONAUT
Israeli and NASA researchers eventually settled on a Tel Aviv University proposal called the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment -- or MEIDEX, for short.
Scientists long have wondered about the impact of dust particles in the atmosphere on global climate and rainfall. MEIDEX will use a multispectral camera aboard Columbia to study how dust from the Sahara Desert is distributed across North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
"The thing we know very little about is the effect of particles on clouds and precipitation," said Zev Levin, a professor of atmospheric physics at Tel Aviv University and one of the project's principal scientists. "This is one of the particular areas we are trying to understand."
While researchers nailed down the mission's scientific rationale, another search was under way to find the person who would become the first Israeli in space.
