Israeli shuttle astronaut too busy to observe Sabbath

CAPE CANAVERAL -- The first Israeli in space, Ilan Ramon, said Saturday he was too busy with science experiments aboard shuttle Columbia to observe the Jewish Sabbath.

"I didn't even have the chance to think about Sabbath," Ramon said in a TV interview.

Ramon noted that he is secular and did not get any special permission to work on the Sabbath. He spent Friday evening and Saturday conducting research just like his six American crewmates; the shuttle is loaded with more than 80 experiments.

"The only thing I did have is a kiddush cup, but I even missed that for Friday. I hope I'll do it next Friday," he said, holding up the small silver prayer cup and letting it go. It floated, upright, alongside him.

NASA prohibition against alcohol in space prevented Ramon from taking wine with him for the Friday evening celebration of the Sabbath.

Ramon, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said before the shuttle flight that Sabbath, for him in space, would fall on Houston time. The issue arose among some rabbis, given that the sun rises and sets every 90 minutes for astronauts circling Earth.

Because NASA's astronaut headquarters and Mission Control are in Houston, Ramon said he would follow Central Standard Time aboard Columbia.

Ramon said he also has been too busy since Thursday's launch to think about the historical significance of his flight.

The 48-year-old astronaut said he was well aware of all the security surrounding his launch. He called the protection -- unprecedented for a NASA space shot -- "unbelievable and helpful."

Earlier in the day, Ramon and his crewmates aimed a pair of Israeli cameras at the Mediterranean and Atlantic in search of airborne plumes of dust that might be affecting the weather.

The $2 million experiment is sponsored by the Israel Space Agency and Tel Aviv University.

Researchers want to better understand how dust affects climate and are using the 16-day mission to gather evidence. The dust can be far-flung, with plumes originating in the Sahara Desert sometimes drifting across the Atlantic all the way to Florida.

On Saturday, thick cloud cover obscured the views, but the cameras still provided remarkable details of the clouds that scientists said warrant further study. As the cameras scanned the Mediterranean, researchers stationed in Greece took simultaneous dust measurements from an airplane for comparison.

It was so cloudy over Israel that Ramon could not see much of his homeland 180 miles below. Still, he said, "it's a great start and it's an opening for great science from our nation and hopefully for our neighbors in the Middle East."

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On the Net:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Israel Space Agency: http://beta.most.gov.il