News from the 15th day of the flight - January 30.1.2003, XNUMX
In the photo: Spacecraft commander Rick Husband and Ilan Ramon hovering
Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon said on Wednesday in a conversation with the news agencies from the shuttle Columbia that he wishes his homeland, and in fact the entire Middle East - to be quiet and live in peace as seen from space.
"The world looks wonderful from up here, beautiful and fragile," he said
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The first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, expressed regret yesterday that he did not get to vote in the Israeli elections, but noted that "the experience of being in space is worth giving up the democratic right." In an interview with Channel 10 news in the USA, Ramon said that he was updated on the results of the Israeli elections from the personal doctor accompanying him from the Houston space center.
Ramon, who is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this weekend, said that he is already thinking about his next space flight and expressed hope that there will be no delays in landing. "I miss my beloved and the children very much," he said, adding that during his flight in space he spoke twice with his family via video call from the shuttle. "I miss a healthy shower, but more than that I miss contact with people," he added.
On Tuesday, the seven members of the crew of the space shuttle Columbia observed a moment of silence to mark the anniversary of the crash of the space shuttle Challenger. After a week in which Ramon and his colleagues failed to locate dust storms in order to carry out the Israeli experiment "Midex", this week a dust storm was found over the Atlantic Ocean, so that the Israeli experiment was carried out in full. Ramon expressed satisfaction that the experiment could be carried out.
In an interview, Ramon stated that he was able to see Israel from space. "She looks so peaceful and calm from above," he said. He said that he was once again unable to mark the beginning of Shabbat, due to the difficulty in keeping track of the passing days, and expressed hope that he would do so this coming Shabbat evening.
Crew member Laurel Clark said she was thrilled to see a flower bloom on the shuttle and silkworm pupae develop into moths. Rose and the moths are part of 80 experiments flown on the space shuttle Columbia.
The cosmetics industry hopes to develop a new space scent using the miniature rose as well as jasmine-scented Asian rice in the shuttle's greenhouse, while a Chinese student wants to see how silkworms develop and produce silk in the absence of gravity.
From a scientific point of view, the flight was fantastic, said astronaut Michael Anderson.
"We managed to keep a flame burning for over an hour and a half, which is a new world record, and we saw things we didn't expect to see. We also saw cancer cells grow 100 times more than we expected, and this experiment could open a new era in prostate cancer research.
A Native American experiment
A high school teacher and his students from an Indian reservation in rural Idaho created one of the more than eighty experiments on the space shuttle Columbia. The experiment is called "Fun With Urine" - and it investigates the urine of the astronauts.
