Ramon, Ilan

(1954-2003)

   Israel's first astronaut and a national hero. Ilan Ramon was born in Tel Aviv on 20 June 1954 and earned a bachelor of science in electronics and computer engineering from Tel Aviv University in 1987. In 1974, Ramon graduated as a fighter pilot from the Israel Air Force Flight School and accumulated more than 4,000 hours on various types of fighter jets. Ramon was selected to fly in Israel's first squadron of F-16 aircraft, and he rose through the ranks to become a colonel with responsibilities for the Department of Operational Requirements for Weapon Development and Acquisition. Ramon fought in the Yom Kippur War (1973) and Operation Peace for Galilee (see WAR IN LEBANON [1982]) and participated in the 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak.

   In 1997, Ramon was chosen to become Israel's first astronaut and assigned as the payload specialist aboard STS-107 Columbia, an American space shuttle. Ramon began training for the mission at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in July 1998. Although a secular Jew, Ramon insisted on eating special kosher meals in space and met with rabbis to determine how he could properly observe Shabbat while in orbit. He took a number of personal and Judaic items into space, including a pencil drawing by a child who was killed at Auschwitz. Ramon himself was a child of Holocaust survivors. Columbia took off on 16 January 2003 and successfully orbited for 16 days. While in orbit, Ramon conducted a variety of experiments, and the mission was taken to be a success. However, 16 minutes prior to landing, Ramon and his six American crew mates aboard the space shuttle perished when the Columbia disintegrated above the southern United States. In July 2005, the control tower at Ben-Gurion Airport was named in Ramon's memory.

   See also Science.