Space

DATE=02/01/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=SHUTTLE/RAMON PROFILE (L-Update)

NUMBER=2-299101

BYLINE=LARRY JAMES

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

/// EDS: UPDATES 2-299097 with second Ramon act ///

INTRO: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster claimed the life of Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. Larry James has this profile of a man whose space flight had made him a national hero, and whose loss is being mourned across the Jewish state.

TEXT: Ilan Ramon was a colonel in the Israeli Air Force and a former fighter pilot.

He became the first Israeli to fly in space with the launch of Columbia.

At a news conference in early January, Colonel Ramon talked about his anticipation for the Columbia flight, which he said was a long time in coming. He said that, although he was a patient man, he was eager to go.

/// RAMON ACT ///

I have a lot of patience, and to be with this magnificent crew members, it's a pleasure. So, I don't want to be delayed again, but I'm sure we will have wonderful time together, as we already had in the last two-and-a-half years of training. I'm ready to go.

/// END ACT ///

During that same news conference, Colonel Ramon, who was the son of a Holocaust survivor, spoke about a special momento he was taking with him aboard the Columbia.

/// 2ND RAMON ACT ///

It's a drawing of (by) a boy named Peter Ginz. He drew this drawing, while being in the concentration camps of the Nazis. He was then afterwards executed, and the drawing is, as he imagined the earth looking from the moon. And remember, it was long before anybody even dreamt about going to the moon. And this is kind of symbolic drawing that I'm taking with me, to symbolize the win of the spirit of this boy. So, his drawing will be with us up in space to symbolize that.

/// END ACT ///

Colonel Ramon's military career began some three decades ago. He fought in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Lebanon War in 1982. He was also reported to have been one of the fighter pilots who destroyed an unfinished nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. The attack, a daring raid in which eight Israeli warplanes flew for hours undetected in Iraqi airspace, destroyed the French-built Osirak reactor near Baghdad.

Colonel Ramon served as a fighter pilot in the 1970s, '80s and early '90s, logging thousands of hours in advanced fighter aircraft, including the US-made F-16.

He was chosen as Israel's first astronaut in 1997, then moved to Houston the next year to train for the shuttle flight. His wife and four children live in Tel Aviv, but were in Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting his return from the Columbia mission.

He became an overnight hero in Israel when Columbia lifted off from Cape Canaveral 16 days ago.

His loss comes as an especially bitter blow to Israelis, who had viewed the mission as a rare bright spot during more than two years of violence and insecurity.

To commemorate the Columbia flight, the Israeli government had announced beforehand that a new medal dedicated to the first Israeli astronaut was to be minted.

It will now become a remembrance medal, with the biblical inscription from Psalms: "His excellency is over Israel, And his strength is in the skies."

NEB/LDJ/TW