PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 9/2003 - 3 February 2003
-------------------------------
"The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led
into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of
discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space
will go on. In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy.
Yet farther than we can see, there's comfort and hope. In the
words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the
heavens who created all these. He who brings out the starry hosts
one by one and calls them, each by name. Because of his great
power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." The
same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the
seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did
not return safely to earth, yet we can pray that all are safely
home."
--President George W
Bush, 1 February 2003
(1) A SHATTERED DREAM THAT WON'T DESTROY AGE-OLD SPIRIT TO
OVERCOME DISASTERS
The Jerusalem Post, 3 February 2003
(2) TO SEEK, TO FIND AND NOT TO YIELD
The Observer, 2 February 2003
(3) AT DAWN, THE COLUMBIA
The New York Times, 3 February 2033
(4) 'WE CAN'T STEP BACK'
The Washington Times, 3 February 2003
(5) SHUTTLE'S DESERT DUST EXPERIMENT DELIVERS
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
(6) NASA MEMORIAL SERVICE SCHEDULED AT JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
===============
(1) A SHATTERED DREAM THAT WON'T DESTROY AGE-OLD SPIRIT TO
OVERCOME DISASTERS
From The Jerusalem Post, 3 February 2003
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1044162705201
By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER AND NEWS AGENCIES
Being the son of an Auschwitz survivor was a defining part of
astronaut Ilan Ramon's identity and the reason he choose to take
with him to space something from that period, according to Avner
Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem directorate.
"He approached us, because it was so central to his
identity, not only the remembrance, but a very central part of
his being, as a human being, as an Israeli," Shalev said.
"He was born here, he was a pilot, and the image of the
mighty Israeli the sabra was part of him. Nevertheless, another
part, a very central one, was the remembrance of the Shoah, as
continuity to Jewish life and continuity to his own family."
Ramon expressed that identity, Shalev said, by taking not just
one symbol of that era, but three: a small pencil drawing, titled
"Moon Landscape," created by a 14-year-old Jewish boy
during his incarceration in the Theresienstadt ghetto; a mezuza
ringed with bits of barbed wire, symbolizing the spiritual
resistance within the confining perimeters of Nazi concentration
camps and ghettos; and a miniature Torah scroll that, along with
its owner, survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; Shalev
said the pencil drawing was not the original, contrary to various
media reports.
"It was a copy we wouldn't dare send the original, because
they are so rare and unique for us," he said. "Even
NASA regulations forbid it. So they gave us instructions exactly
how to make and prepare the replica, and we did it. We also had a
photograph of [the artist] Petr Ginz, which was sent with it, and
Ilan took both of them."
Ramon had spoken of Ginz's science-fiction drawing while he was
training at the Houston Space Center. "I feel that my
journey fulfills the dream of Petr Ginz 58 years on," Ramon
said.
"A dream that is ultimate proof of the greatness of the soul
of a boy imprisoned within the ghetto walls, the walls of which
could not conquer his spirit. Ginz's drawings, stored at Yad
Vashem, are a testimony to the triumph of the spirit."
Yehudit Shendar, Yad Vashem's senior curator, had found the
drawing about four months ago while searching for something
appropriate for Ramon to take with him.
"I suggested that this should be the item that Ilan take to
the space shuttle," Shendar said yesterday from Boston.
"I think it was quite an easy choice realizing that Ilan was
going on a shuttle space flight, it was easy to connect between
him and between Petr and the Jewish state.
Looking from the moon to the earth, and I found it incredible
that a young boy of 14 could envision the site that Ilan himself
was about to see on his trip."
Ginz was deported to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt on September
28, 1944, and was immediately gassed upon arrival at Birkenau the
next day. Ramon's mother, now 75, and his grandmother were
liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
"I know my flight is very symbolic for the people of Israel,
especially the survivors, the Holocaust survivors," Ramon
said numerous times in the months leading up to his space
mission. "Because I was born in Israel, many people will see
this as a dream come true. I'm kind of the proof for my parents
and their generation that whatever we've been fighting for in the
last century is becoming true."
The mezuza Ramon took with him into space had a silver-and-copper
Star of David ringed with bits of barbed wire, a gift from San
Francisco artist Aimee Golant, whose grandparents survived the
Holocaust.
While training to become an astronaut, Ramon approached the 1939
Club of Los Angeles whose members are Holocaust survivors and
expressed his desire to take a mezuza into space, said Golant,
whose grandparents also belong to the 1939 Club.
Ramon wanted no publicity about his special "space"
mezuza, Golant said. "He told me, 'The people who need to
know about it, will know.' "
The miniature sefer Torah that Ramon carried with him was lent to
him by Joachim Yosef, 71, an atmospheric physicist at Tel Aviv
University who oversaw an Israeli experiment aboard the shuttle,
and who is a survivor of Bergen-Belsen.
Yosef was given the miniature Torah by an Amsterdam rabbi who
shared his barracks in 1944. Yosef had just turned 13, and the
rabbi secretly arranged a bar mitzvah ceremony at 4 a.m. in the
prisoners' barracks.
"After the ceremony, he said, 'You take this, this scroll
that you just read from, because I will not leave here alive. But
you must promise me that if you get out, you'll tell the
story,'" Yosef recalled.
The rabbi was killed two months later, and Yosef was freed from
the camp in a prisoner exchange in 1945, one month before it was
liberated by the Americans and British.
While at Yosef's home two years ago to discuss the space
experiments, Ramon noticed the scroll and asked if he could take
it, along with a journal of Yosef's, on the flight.
"He was deeply affected," Yosef said. "He almost
cried. I feel now that I finally was able to fulfill my promise
to Rabbi Dasberg 50 years ago."
While in space, Ramon showed the Torah to Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon during a televised conference.
"This represents more than anything the ability of the
Jewish people to survive despite everything from horrible
periods," Ramon told Sharon.
Copyright 2003, Jerusalem Post
=============
(2) TO SEEK, TO FIND AND NOT TO YIELD
From The Observer, 2 February 2003
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/
By Duncan Steel
An astronaut in a returning space vehicle is riding a bomb. With
a re-entry speed just below five miles per second, an inert mass
like a space capsule has energy of motion seven times as high as
the explosive power of the same mass of TNT. If something goes
awry, a phenomenal explosion is inevitable. Unfortunately,
something did go wrong with flight STS-107.
Let us leave the technical aspects aside, and consider instead
the human angle. Astronauts know the risks, and face them
courageously and willingly. Although the advent of space tourism
may have led the public into thinking that spaceflight is now
safe, in fact for the foreseeable future all spacecraft will be
experimental vehicles.
The expected failure rate for shuttle missions is around one in
100, maybe more. Everyone involved knows that. Even a decade ago
commentators were arguing that the International Space Station
could not be built to plan unless Nasa's fleet is augmented,
because it is to be anticipated that some shuttles will be lost
along the way.
Despite this, there is no shortage of capable volunteers. The
astronaut corps has dozens of trained members and there are
crews, and multiple back-ups, ready and willing to man the next
launch. The hiatus now is for one reason only: to assure the
American public that everything possible is done to maximise the
safety of the remaining shuttles, and the human cargo they carry.
Should our concern for their safety lead to an end of manned
spaceflight? Clearly, no. Should we stop people from climbing
mountains, or sailing the oceans? Should we cry a halt to motor
racing? Not so long as the people involved do not recklessly
endanger the lives of others.
S pace research is expensive. But it can justify the cost 1,000
times over. Much of Britain being brought to a standstill last
week by a smattering of snow was shameful because, unlike a
couple of decades ago, we knew precisely when and where it was
coming, from our meteorological satellites. When I was a child it
took four days for the film of the first Cassius Clay versus
Sonny Liston title fight to arrive and be shown on British TV,
whereas now we have instantaneous viewing of the Superbowl from
San Diego, and the cricket from Australia - although not everyone
will agree this is a good thing.
Nowadays many space activities may be carried out by robotic
craft, controlled from the ground or by their on-board computers.
But there is a limit to what can be done remotely, or using
artificial intelligence. Space agencies try to minimise cost in
every way, and anything involving manned flight implies far
higher expenditure, but in the end there is no replacement for a
human brain. Many probes have been sent to Mars, and this year
Nasa and the European Space Agency will launch others, but these
have all been robotic craft with limited capabilities. To
understand Mars, and conduct a proper search for life, eventually
we'll need to send a geologist with a rock hammer - plus, of
course, some pretty sophisticated analysis equipment.
Moreover, if Nasa decided to abandon all manned missions, its
budget would be cut. American voters like to view pictures of
distant planets returned by robotic satellites, but even more
they appreciate seeing astronauts in space suits bearing the
Stars and Stripes.
All great human projects cost lives. Build a bridge, and workers
are killed in construction accidents. The human cost of the loss
of Columbia is not only the seven astronauts, but also those who
will die in building its replacement, either working directly on
its fabrication, or those labouring to pay the tax dollars that
will fund it. It was ever thus: check out how many of Captain
Cook's sailors died on his voyages, despite his success in
countering scurvy.
"Do not go gentle into that good night," exhorted Dylan
Thomas of us all. The courageous astronauts of STS-107 did not,
and set an example to follow, in whatever walk of life. To some
the inspiration will be pivotal: how many Indian schoolgirls will
have their life courses changed by learning of the achievements
of Kalpana Chawla?
Ultimately, like all explorers, astronauts lead their lives in a
way described by Tennyson more than 160 years ago: "To
strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." We owe it to
those who have died, and those who yet will perish in helping to
conquer space for all mankind, not to yield in our pursuit of
what lies above and beyond this island earth.
Duncan Steel is reader in space technology at the University of
Salford. He has worked for both Nasa and the ESA.
D.I.Steel@Salford.ac.uk
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
===========
(3) AT DAWN, THE COLUMBIA
From The New York Times, 3 February 2033
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/opinion/03FERR.html
By TIMOTHY FERRIS
SAN FRANCISCO - In the dark before dawn Friday morning, 24 hours
prior to Columbia's re-entering the earth's atmosphere, I went
outside to see if I could catch sight of it. Fog hung over the
bay, obscuring all but a few stars. I had almost given up when
the shuttle suddenly appeared, gliding across a black lagoon of
clear sky between two cloudbanks. It didn't look like much - a
yellowish dot of light, wavering in the turbid air like a lantern
on the stern of a receding square-rigger, bustling eastward with
appointments to keep. But as I watched it vanish behind the
clouds, I found myself thinking about the seven astronauts
aboard.
Like many Americans, I hadn't been paying much attention to these
particular astronauts. Then, on the Internet last Thursday, I
happened across one of their live broadcasts from space, and
wound up watching them for hours on the computer screen. They
demonstrated how they ate their favorite foods in the weightless
environment (carefully, to prevent crumbs floating around), wryly
displayed the frozen blood samples they were bringing back for
laboratory analysis on the ground, and cavorted in weightlessness
as delightedly as otters on ice.
There was something touching about the modest, almost intimate
scale of the science experiments they conducted in the shuttle's
lofty laboratory. They ignited balls of fire in a retort to study
combustion in their weightless (technically,
"microgravity") environment. They carried out
"spiders in space" and "ants in space" tests
designed by high school students. Mission specialist Laurel
Clark, of Racine, Wis., whose gentle, effervescent demeanor
seemed at odds with her credentials as a Navy Seals diver and
flight surgeon, reported happily that a moth she was scrutinizing
"was just starting to pump its wings up."
"Life continues in lots of places," she reflected,
"and life is a magical thing."
I grew fond of them. Perhaps that's what brought me out on my
widow's walk Friday. On Saturday morning I was up again, hoping
to see them re-entering the atmosphere. A shuttle re-entry can be
an awesome sight, a stark white contrail drawn across the sky
like a fragment of titanic poetry. Television pictures don't
prepare you for the enormity of the spectacle, the size of the
proscenium within which the drama of spaceflight is played. I'd
seen two of them, and was hoping for a third - especially as I'd
got to know a bit about the crew.
But the sky was covered by slate-gray clouds. I listened for the
shuttle's double sonic boom but heard nothing. Back in bed I
thought, they'll be home by now, and fell asleep. An hour later
the phone started ringing.
Watching the shuttle go over can make you feel like a savage
seeing a ship. It's not terribly far away, typically less than
200 miles high. As Isaac Asimov used to say, you could drive the
family car to space in an afternoon, if the car could go straight
up. Yet, it's in space. The shuttle astronauts see Earth as it
is, just one small planet. They see the atmosphere for what it
is, a fragile membrane no thicker, relative to the planet, than
the skein of tears that a blink bestows on the eye. And they
float, weightless, like fish in the sea or an embryo in the womb.
They may be "coasting," like the mariners of old who
cautiously kept within sight of land, but the transition they are
making could prove to be as epochal as the one that transpired
when life first ventured out of the oceans onto land.
Watching the shuttle's customarily perfect skywriting sprawl into
deadly chaos on the TV screen, I found myself thinking about
those first amphibians and of what they left behind. Up until
then, nearly every form of life in this world lived and died in
the weightlessness of aquatic buoyancy. (That's how astronauts
practice spacewalking today, by donning their spacesuits and
climbing into an enormous swimming pool.) Then a few gave up
their submarine freedom to labor in the weighty world above.
In a sense, each of us humans recapitulates this ancient
transition. We start life afloat, weightless, in the womb, and
then are delivered into a world of heaviness and toil. Ilan
Ramon, the Israeli astronaut on Columbia, said in an interview
from orbit that he liked it so much up there that he never wanted
to come back. Other spacefarers have said the same thing.
Possibly the appeal of weightlessness harbors a species of
remembrance.
Which could explain, if dreams have explanations, a dream I had
years ago. I'd applied to fly on the shuttle as part of the
"Journalist in Space" program, which NASA canceled
following the Challenger crash of 1986. One night I dreamed that
we were completing a shuttle mission when something went wrong
during re-entry. Instead of descending to Earth we skipped off
the top of the atmosphere and were flung into space, never to
return.
As the red clouds of dawn fell away beneath us I turned to the
terrified astronaut sitting next to me and said: "It's all
right. It's O.K. We're going home."
Timothy Ferris is author, most recently, of ``Seeing in the Dark:
How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth
From Interplanetary Peril.''
Copyright 2003, The New York Times
==============
(4) 'WE CAN'T STEP BACK'
From The Washington Times, 3 February 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030203-29458440.htm
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration promised
yesterday to resume shuttle flights as early as June, and several
key senators vowed renewed support for the nation's space
program.
President Bush will propose a nearly $470 million boost in NASA's
budget for fiscal 2004, an administration official said Sunday,
promising investigators would look into whether past cutbacks
played any part in the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
NASA also announced that it had appointed a retired admiral to
lead its investigation into the explosion of the Space Shuttle
Columbia on Saturday.
"Once we find out what that cause was, and once we correct
that, we're going to fly again," NASA chief Sean O'Keefe
said on ABC's "This Week" yesterday.
==========
(5) SHUTTLE'S DESERT DUST EXPERIMENT DELIVERS
From NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
Melissa Motichek
Headquarters,
Washington
January 29, 2003
(Phone: 202/358-1141)
NOTE TO EDITORS: N03-010
SHUTTLE'S DESERT DUST EXPERIMENT DELIVERS
An experiment aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) has
uncovered a new phenomenon. Researchers made the discovery
studying the role of aerosol particles in global climate changes.
The Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment (MEIDEX) is gathering
data about aerosol plumes emitted from deserts. MEIDEX builds on
previous studies that showed aerosol particles might be one of
the primary agents that can offset warming.
MEIDEX is a joint project of the Israel Space Agency and NASA.
Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, is a member of the STS-107
crew.
For more information, contact Melissa Motichek at: 202/359- 1141.
More information about MEIDEX is available on the Internet
at: http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov/sts-107/107_MEIDEX.pdf
=========
(6) NASA MEMORIAL SERVICE SCHEDULED AT JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
From NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
Glenn Mahone/Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington February 2, 2003
(Phone: 202/358-1898/1600)
Eileen Hawley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)
RELEASE: 03-37
NASA MEMORIAL SERVICE SCHEDULED AT JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
The President and Mrs. George W. Bush will join NASA
Administrator Sean O'Keefe Tuesday afternoon in paying tribute to
the brave heroes of the Space Shuttle Columbia crew during a
special memorial service at the NASA Johnson Space Center in
Houston.
The ceremony to honor NASA astronauts Rick Husband, William
McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel
Clark, and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon is scheduled to begin at
12:45 p.m. EST in the Central Mall area behind Building One.
Gates are scheduled to open at 10 a.m.
This is a private ceremony for family members, friends, and
invited guests, along with NASA employees and contractors. The
service will be carried live on NASA Television and available on
the Internet at www.nasa.gov.
Media access to the memorial service will be restricted with
television and still photography access provided on a pool basis.
NASA Television is available on AMC-2, transponder 9C, C-Band,
located at 85 degrees West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0
MHz. Polarization is vertical and audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz.
Additional information about the STS-107 crew and the Space
Shuttle Columbia is available on the Internet at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe, please contact the moderator Benny J
Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk >. Information circulated on
this network is for scholarly and educational use only. The
attached information may not be copied or reproduced for any
other purposes without prior permission of the copyright holders.
The fully indexed archive of the CCNet, from February 1997 on,
can be found at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html. DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints
expressed in the articles and texts and in other CCNet
contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs
and viewpoints of the moderator of this network.
--------------------------------------------------------------------