Ilan Ramon, Colonel, Israeli Air Force fighter pilot.
The Israeli and American governments cosponsored a project out of Tel Aviv University, “The Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment.” The experiment was to be conducted in space. NASA selected Colonel Ramon as a payload specialist and in 1998, he began training at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Ramon became Israel's first astronaut.
He was assigned to the crew of STS 107 (Columbia). His crew mates were Rick Husband CDR, William McCool PLT, Michael Anderson Payload CDR, Laurel Clark Mission Specialist, David Brown Mission Specialist, and Kalpana Chowla Mission Specialist (Kalpana was born and raised in India where she earned her B.S. degree in aeronautical engineering and later she earned a Masters at the University of Texas-Arlington, then earned a doctorate in Aerospace engineering at University of Colorado)
Ramon, whose mother and grandmother were survivors of Auschwitz, was asked by S. Isaac Mekel, director of development at the American Society for Yad Vashem, to take an item from Yad Vashem aboard STS-107. Ramon carried with him a pencil sketch, Moon Landscape, drawn by 16-year-old Petr Ginz, who died in Auschwitz. Ramon also took with him a microfiche copy of the Torah given to him by Israeli president Moshe Katsav and a miniature Torah scroll (from the Holocaust) that was given him by Prof. Yehoyachin Yosef, a Bergen Belsen survivor.
On the mission in space, Ramon observed the Jewish Sabbath.
On January 16, 2003, the Columbia launched. 82 seconds into the flight a 1.7 lb section of foam insulation broke away from the ET fuel tank and struck the shuttle's left wing. The impact blew a 16 inch hole in leading edge panel #8. This damage was lethal. After a 16 day flight in space during which the astronauts completed all scientific experiments, on Feb 1, 2003, the shuttle was destroyed during reentry. All seven aboard perished.
Here is a 20 minute video shot by Colonel Ramon during the mission and days before the tragedy. This video shows the astronauts going about their business and having some fun during down time.
I post this here to show that seven human beings regardless of race, nationality and religion can come together as explorers in a common cause for all mankind.
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Colonel Ilan Ramon.
The Columbia Crew. L to R. Brown, Husband, Clark, Chowla, Anderson, McCool and Ramon