Ilan Ramon's wife and son speaking at his memorial service near Tel Aviv on Monday. (Photo: Reuters)
Posted on 02/10/2003 8:03:21 PM PST by yonif
Israeli leaders eulogized the country's first astronaut Monday evening in a memorial ceremony that took place shortly after Ilan Ramon's remains were flown home from the United States in a coffin.
"We could not have had a better and more fitting representative" than Ramon, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at the ceremony, which took place at the Lod Air Force base. “His image, projected from above, was the reflection of Israel at its best – Israel as we would have liked to see it – the Israel we love.”
The items that Ramon brought into the shuttle instilled pride in Jews throughout the world, Sharon said. "The Torah scroll brought by a Jewish boy from a concentration camp, the [Jewish ritual] Kiddush cup, the Israeli flag and the Air Force badge touched and excited all Jews," he said at the service, which was attended by the political leaders, IDF top brass and officials from Israel's space agency.
Click here for Sharon’s speech. (http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=261465&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y)
President Moshe Katsav said that Israel would still be facing great danger had Ramon not bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.
Also in the crowd were 15 NASA representatives and a few Israeli high school students who designed an experiment that Ramon carried aboard the shuttle to examine how near zero-gravity affects the growth of crystals.
Ramon, an Israeli Air Force colonel, and his six American fellow astronauts were killed when their space shuttle, Columbia, broke up over Texas during its re-entry to Earth's atmosphere on February 1, following a 16-day research mission.
At the request of the family, Ramon will be laid to rest Tuesday at Moshav Nahalal, in the Jezreel Valley. The funeral will be attended by family and friends, and will be closed to the media.
The details of the two services were finalized by the ministerial committee for commemorative occasions, headed by Minister Danny Naveh.
In the United States intensive investigation into the disintegration of the craft continues. A large piece of a Columbia wing was found Saturday near near Fort Worth, Texas, raising hopes that it might shed more light on the causes of the disaster. It is one of the largest pieces of debris found since the crash and is covered with a large number of the special tiles that make up the shuttle's upon reentry heat shield. NASA is focusing on the role of the tiles in the crash.
Space Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore said Friday in Houston that the piece of the wing will be carefully examined. It was not immediately clear which side it came from, but if from the left, it might carry signs of earlier damage that may have caused a failure in the tiles.
NASA has been playing down the importance of a photograph from a military telescope taken minutes before the crash in which significant damage to the shuttle wing was apparently evident. The photograph was first published in Aviation Week and according to the journal it clearly shows damage to the left wing of the shuttle and smoke pouring from that side of Columbia.
Ilan Ramon's wife and son speaking at his memorial service near Tel Aviv on Monday. (Photo: Reuters)
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