January 9, 2003 Space Programs Thriving in Israel Nation
produces booster rocket and mix of military and commercial
satellites. The Israeli Post Office issued a stamp in December
featuring the country's first astronaut, who is scheduled to fly
on NASA's space shuttle in mid-January. "Every time you are the
first, it's meaningful," said Col. Ilan Ramon. Israel will join
an elite club of 30 nations that have sent at least one citizen
into orbit aboard a U.S. shuttle or a Russian Soyuz capsule. The
countries include Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Syria, Costa Rica, South
Africa, Poland, Afghanistan and Cuba. "It's peculiar that it
would have taken this long to fly an Israeli, given our
strategic alliance with Israel," said John Pike of the
Arlington, Va.-based research group, GlobalSecurity.org. "I
mean, we flew a Saudi almost 20 years ago." Prince Sultan Salman
Abdul Aziz al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, flew as
a guest on the space shuttle in June 1985, ostensibly to oversee
the release of a Saudi-owned com