It was a Shabbos Israelis and Jews all over will never forget a day when national pride turned into shocking tragedy and mourning: February 1 2003 the day the Columbia spacecraft disintegrated upon reentry to the earth’s atmosphere just 16 minutes before it was to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida killing all seven crewmembers on board — including Israel’s lauded first astronaut and former fighter pilot Colonel Ilan Ramon. While a hero’s welcome awaited them people around the globe watched unbelieving as the shuttle craft fell apart 37 miles above ground shooting its contents all over eastern Texas and Louisiana. Two months later 37 pages (one for each mile of descent) of Ilan Ramon’s personal diary were discovered in a muddy field outside the providentially named town of Palestine Texas. The diary somehow survived the extreme heat of the explosion acute atmospheric cold and the harsh elements of a winter swamp. It took about a year to restore and another four years for Israeli police scientists to decipher 30 of the pages where the ink hadn’t been totally washed away. Two of those pages went on display in 2008 — one page was of personal notes and the second was Ilan Ramon’s handwritten Kiddush found wet but totally readable which he famously recited on the three Friday nights he spent in space.