-Caveat Lector-
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021216-11812890.htm
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Israelis pick their first astronaut
Philip Chien
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published December 16, 2002
Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli air force, is scheduled to become the first
Israeli
astronaut. Col. Ramon will fly on the STS-107 shuttle mission in January.
In theory, the only people who get to fly in space are highly trained career
astronauts.
In practice, money and politics are just as important.
Anybody with enough money can purchase a weeklong ride to the International Space
Station from Russia. And countries on good terms with the United States have been
offered
seats on space shuttle missions.
In the past, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has flown guest
astronauts from Canada, France, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, among other nations.
Some were legitimate scientists and engineers flying with specific experiments.
Some were token passengers flying because their countries purchased satellite
launches
from NASA. And many flew solely for political reasons. If the State Department wants to
encourage friendly relationships with another country, inviting that country to fly a
passenger on the shuttle goes a long way.
After the Challenger accident, the Rogers Commission recommended that only trained
astronauts fly and said there was no place for nonprofessionals. If a position can be
filled
by a NASA career astronaut it is, with outside "payload specialists" flying only if
they have
specific skills not available in the astronaut corps.
The primary exceptions have been for foreigners. For example, Leonid Kadenyuk,
former Soviet cosmonaut from Ukraine, flew on the shuttle in 1997. He barely spoke
English, and none of the rest of the crew spoke Russian or Ukrainian. As a token
science
mission, Mr. Kadenyuk tended several plant-growth experiments.
In 1995 the Clinton administration offered Israel the opportunity to fly an
experiment
and astronaut on the shuttle. Col. Ramon has excellent English skills and much more
training than many who have flown on the shuttle.
Col. Ramon explained, "I was selected out of the air force because the Israeli
space
agency believed that the best person to be the first would be exactly as the seven
first
[Mercury] astronauts out of the United States were" — military pilots.
Col. Ramon has a long record as an Israeli air force pilot, which he can't
discuss.
Rumors place him in one of the most daring military operations in the Middle East. On
June
7, 1981, several F-16s were flown by Israeli pilots into Iraq. The F-16s bombed the
Osirak
nuclear reactor that Iraq was building supposedly as a civilian power plant.
The United States sold the F-16s to Israel with the understanding that they would
be
used only for defensive purposes and formally condemned the action, along with most
countries. But the United States and other countries were grateful that Iraq didn't
get an
operational nuclear reactor.
Col. Ramon was one of the first Israeli pilots trained to fly the F-16 and,
according to his
biography, in 1981 he was a deputy squadron commander, which would have made him a
strong candidate for the Osirak raid.
But he won't talk about whether he was involved. He said: "I'm 30 years in the
air force
and done a lot of operations. I can't refer to any of them. Use your imagination and
you can
put me there or put me out of there."
Unlike most payload specialists, Col. Ramon will be participating with more
experiments
because of the mission's heavy workload. Payload commander Mike Anderson explained:
"When we were assigned to the flight, I started looking at the payloads and it became
obvious Ilan would have to be fully integrated with the crew. Usually a payload
specialist
specializes in one payload, but we couldn't have that luxury on this flight. So Ilan
is fully
trained in all of the payloads. He's going to everything that the other astronauts on
flight are
doing."
The scientific reason for Col. Ramon's mission is Meidex, the Mediterranean
Israeli Dust
Experiment. A special camera in the shuttle's cargo bay will be used to sweep across
the
Mediterranean Sea and a portion of the Atlantic Ocean next to Africa to look for large
dust
clouds.
Former NASA administrator Daniel Goldin said, "NASA has been working for the past
decade with the Israelis about studying aerosols, desert dust interacting with the
clouds
over the Middle East. We got a counterintuitive result. It appears that instead of
increasing
[rain] because of the additional seeding, it depresses it."
The STS-107 mission had been planned for July but was delayed by technical
problems
with the shuttle fleet. NASA bumped STS-107 behind two space-station missions that were
more time-critical.
Copyright ?#169; 2002 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Return to the article
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
