A diary is going on display in a Jerusalem museum this weekend. But it’s not your typical diary. It was written by Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut who perished in the Columbia explosion in 2003. The document survived the explosion and a 37-mile fall to earth. It seems like an amazing series of coincidental events, until you learn this detail: the diary landed in a field near a town named Palestine (Palestine, Texas, to be exact). Coincidence or Providence? I’m not sure, but it makes me curious enough to want to read the diary.
An Associated Press story provides the details and quotes the museum curator as saying, “It’s almost a miracle that it survived — it’s incredible.” There is “no rational explanation” for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he said.
The AP story mentions that many of the pages “contain personal information which Ramon’s wife did not wish to make public.” The story reports, “Two pages will be displayed. One contains notes written by Ramon, and the other is a copy of the Kiddush prayer, a blessing over wine that Jews recite on the Sabbath. Zalmona said Ramon copied the prayer into his diary so he could recite it on the space shuttle and have the blessing broadcast to Earth.”
