Ilan Ramon

https://youtu.be/Q8JoqiBatfI

כיוון לירח- אילן רמון

Ilan Ramon was the first Israeli space pilot. He served as a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia crew. Participated in mission STS-107. On February 1, 2003, she perished along with the crew of the shuttle, which disintegrated upon its return to the Earth’s atmosphere. Before that, he served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In August 1972, Ramon enlisted in the Air Force and began a pilot’s course, which he had to leave after eight months after breaking his arm. During the Yom Kippur War he served in an electronic warfare unit at the Umm Hitra base in Sinai. He returned to the flight course, during which he was forced due to a technical fault to abandon together with the instructor who was with him, he was slightly injured from the abandonment. In 1974 he completed the pilot course as an outstanding trainee. He served as a fighter pilot. In 1980, he was among the first pilots to go to the United States to learn the F-16 plane, and was on the plane’s acceptance team at the Air Force.

In June 1981, Ramon participated in the bombing of the reactor that began to be built in Iraq. He was one of the first to take part in the planning of the operation and was the youngest of the pilots who participated in the attack

On January 20, 1982, during a training flight, Ramon collided with another plane from the squadron. Ramon and the other pilot bailed out safely and the planes crashed. A year later he participated in the First Lebanon War.

In 1983 he was released from permanent service and began studying at Tel Aviv University and four years later received a bachelor’s degree in electronics and computer engineering. After completing his studies, he joined the development team of the ‘Halavee’ aircraft.

Ramon was chosen to be the first Israeli space pilot according to the Air Force, following an agreement signed between Israel and the USA in 1995 for an Israeli phase in a NASA space flight. The Israeli Space Agency asked the Air Force to choose the participant for it, and in 1997 the Air Force chose Ramon. In 1998 Ramon and his family: his wife Rona and their four children – moved their residence to the training facility for astronauts in the United States.

As part of his role on the shuttle mission STS-107, Ramon participated in the Israeli dust experiment to investigate how dust storms affect the Middle East as well as other experiments in biology and physics. Ramon took with him into space various objects that present Israeli society, among them:

* Flag of the President of the State of Israel

* Israel flag

* Flag of the Israeli Air Force

* A pennant with the symbol of the Israeli Space Agency

* A stone with the emblem of Tel Aviv University

* A pennant with the symbol of the Air Force Museum

* A pennant with the symbol of the city of Ramat Gan, his hometown

* A flag with a symbol of Beer Sheva, the city where he grew up

* A flag with the symbol of the “Blich” school, located in Ramon’s residential neighborhood, Ramat Chen, where his children studied when they returned to Israel.

* A small Torah scroll that he received from Holocaust survivor Professor Yehoichin Yosef (who received it in the Bergen-Belsen camp from Rabbi Shimon Dasberg who smuggled him into the camp.)

* A miniature Bible printed on microfilm that he received from the country’s president Moshe Katsav.

* An eighth shekel coin from the Great Revolt.

*Number of mezuzahs.

* A dollar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe given to him by a messenger of the Lubavitcher Rebbe at the Space Center in Florida.

Before his trip, Ramon was interested in how to observe mitzvot in space. To the question of keeping Shabbat in space, the rabbis answered that he should count six periods of time that are 24 hours long, and keep Shabbat in the seventh period, similar to the halachic practice at the poles where the sun does not shine long months.

On February 1, 2003, Ramon perished along with his six crewmates, when the shuttle disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. The cause of the accident was a piece of sealing foam that broke during the launch and hit the heat protection tiles on the left wing of the shuttle. During re-entry, the damaged wing slowly heated up and finally disintegrated, which led to the complete dismantling of the shuttle.

Ramon’s body was identified on February 5 and brought to Israel five days later. Upon the arrival of the casket, a state ceremony was held at the air force base near Natabh in the presence of the family, the president of the country, the prime minister and representatives of NASA. The next day, on February 11, Ramon was buried in the Nehalel cemetery in a military ceremony. At the funeral, the song “Imagine” by John Lennon while he was launched into space. In the background, the voices of Ramon and his colleague Willy McColl were heard expressing hope for a better future, in English and Hebrew.

During his stay in space, Ramon wrote a diary. The diary was discovered in Texas a few weeks after the disaster, slightly charred. Eight pages of it survived the explosion that occurred. In the pages found, Ramon recorded his experiences from the launch to the sixth day of his journey in space. One of the pages that was recovered with the help of the forensic department of the Israel Police, was a page on which Ramon wrote the words of the Kiddush for Shabbat night. He also took the trouble to punctuate the letters in his handwriting so as not to pronounce them incorrectly.

Ilan Ramon has been commemorated in Israel and around the world many times, for example:

* Ramon International Airport – Eilat.

* A street in Be’er Sheva leading towards Hatziris is named after Ilan Ramon.

* The emergency room at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot named after Col. Ilan Ramon.

* Ramon’s name is immortalized in the Youth Center for Physics in Shukar – a scientific center and observatory for youth at Ben-Gurion University.

* The Ilan Ramon International Space Conference – the Ramon coordinator holds a national quiz on space and astronomy issues every year in memory of Ilan Ramon.

* Ramon and his fellow stewards were commemorated in a mitzvah on Mount Ramon overlooking the “Ramon Horns”, the basalt hills to the west of the Ramon Crater.

*Several schools were named after Ilan Ramon.

* In two cities in Canada, streets were named after him.

* The asteroid 51828 Ilnarmon is named after him.

* The scout movement established three scout tribes named after Ilan Ramon.

And more

In May 2010, as part of the STS-132 mission of the space shuttle, the warrior pin of Tal Ramon, son of Ilan Ramon, who served in the “Unit in the Emek” to the International Space Station, was flown into international space and released into space in his name and in memory of his father. The warrior pin was photographed against the background of outer space. A copy of the pin image and a certificate of authenticity from NASA were given to the unit commander, and for commemoration at the Ramat David base.

In August 2020, a commemorative site for Ilan, Rona and Assaf Ramon was inaugurated in the national park in Ramat Gan.

A few weeks after the end of the course Assaf was killed during operational training while flying an F16 plane, after performing a sharp maneuver as a result of which he apparently suffered a temporary loss of consciousness as a result of a strong G-force acting on his body, and was killed when his plane crashed in the south of Mount Hebron. After his death, a public debate developed over the policy used in the army, according to which the combat service of security service candidates who are members of bereaved families is conditional on the approval of their parents, which allows them, in principle, high-risk service frameworks. Assaf Ramon was buried next to his father, in the Nehalel cemetery.

Ilan Ramon’s widow, Rona, was chosen to light a torch at the torch lighting ceremony on the 68th Independence Day in 2016.

On December 17, 2018, she died at the age of 54, after a long battle with cancer.

Ilan Ramon’s son, Tal Ramon, is a musician (singer, pianist, writer and composer).

Ilan Ramon franchisees:

*Medal of honor of the Hungarians in the field of space

* NASA Medal for Outstanding Public Service

* NASA medal for space flight

* A token of appreciation from the Chief of Staff