AMERICA awoke yesterday morning to the news it had hoped never to witness again – the lives of a shuttle crew cruelly wiped out in a fireball.
Again, as with Challenger 17 years ago, the tragic image of the doomed spacecraft, spewing burning debris, played over and over again on all the television networks.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away Israel was in deep mourning for the loss not j
ust of the country’s first man in space but also a former war hero who had briefly brought happiness to a country racked by strife.
The tragic news was a body blow to America, already bracing itself for further terrorist attacks and an imminent war against Iraq. The initial assumption was that it was a terrorist outrage, but within hours the White House had allayed that fear.
Drivers pulled their cars into the roadside to hear the tragedy unfold on their radios. In supermarkets, women dropped their shopping and ran home to watch the dreadful images on their television screens.
Recalling the moment the news broke, Nick Cann, a British-born pilot for Continental Airlines, who lives in Marblehead, north of Boston, said: “I was getting my gear together and I turned on the TV just after 9am.
“The commentator covering the shuttle landing said they had lost contact, but didn’t seem unduly worried. There’s always a couple of minutes when the shuttle is coming in to land when they are out of contact. Five minutes went by, then he said they had ‘lost telemetry’. I knew then it was serious. I sat down. I realised I wasn’t going to go anywhere today.”
Describing his reaction to the tragedy, Cann added: “I felt sick. I felt for the families, waiting there in Florida for the landing. I felt for the country. I wondered when America was going to get a break.”
Meanwhile, there was also heartache in Israel. Ilan Ramon, an Israeli air force colonel, who vanished with the rest of the crew, had become a national hero. In many ways he symbolised the cherished hopes of many in the Jewish state, when he became his country’s first astronaut.
Those pioneers who had founded Israel in 1948 and fought for its survival, could hardly have imagined such achievement arising from the ashes of the Holocaust.
No one knew this more than Ramon, himself the child of an Auschwitz survivor, who had provided a ray of hope and distraction from the almost daily violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Before leaving on the doomed mission from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, he said: “I know my fight is very symbolic for the people of Israel, especially the survivors, the Holocaust survivors, because I was born in Israel, many people will see this as a dream that is come true.”
As he orbited the Earth during the mission, Ramon, who was the payload specialist aboard the shuttle, told Israelis that the planet looked fragile from outer space, and had left him with the thought that his countrymen, and all citizens of the world, must take care of the Earth to ensure the survival of the human race.
Yesterday Ramon’s father Eliezer Wolferman said: “I didn’t expect for this to happen. I don’t have a son. I prefer not to talk right now. It’s very hard for me.”
Ramon’s brother-in-law, Gabi Bar, sobbed as he spoke to a television station. “This is a moment of crisis,” he said. “I don’t know how we can come to terms with the loss of Ilan.”
With the nation weeping, the Israeli embassy in Washington dispatched a small team to Florida to assist Ramon’s wife, Rona, and their children, who were in the United States to await his arrival from outer space.
Even before the Columbia exploded, the Israeli government Coins and Medals Corporation had announced a new medal dedicated to the first Israeli astronaut. The medal, will now become a symbol of remembrance.
Ranaan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said: “The state of Israel and its citizens stand at this difficult hour with the families of the astronauts.”
However, Iraqis celebrated and claimed the disaster was God’s retribution on America and Israel.
Government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said. “We are happy that it broke up. God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us.”
The full article contains 781 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
