Columbia: The Tragic Loss

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Columbia: The Tragic Loss

Directed by	Naftaly Gliksberg
Produced by	Udi Zamberg and Michael Tapuach
Written by	Naftaly Gliksberg
Release date(s)	2004
Running time	60 min.
Language	English, Hebrew
Official website

Columbia: The Tragic Loss is a 2004 documentary about the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died when the Columbia spacecraft disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Two months after the disaster, Ramon's diary was found at one of the crash sites and was reconstructed by the Israel Museum along with Israeli police. Interviews with NASA officials and with Ilan's family offer both expert analysis of the flight and a personal look at the tragedy.

The documentary received a special mention at the Houston International WorldFest Film Festival in 2004.

1 Summary
2 Production
3 Reception
4 Notes
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Summary

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Please improve this article if you can (August 2007).

“Disappointed. Pissed off,” Ilan's son punches at a punching bag as explains his reaction to NASA's failure to bring the astronauts home safely. “He was 100% sure NASA would take care of everything.”

It's now clear that when Colombia launched, a suitcase-size piece of cooling foam broken off from the space craft, severely damaging the left wing. While it's normal for popcorn sized foam to fly off during the launch, such a massive piece put a hole in the wing that was large enough for a small child to fit inside of it. This hole allowed the heat from reentering Earth's atmosphere to break down the spacecraft, killing everyone aboard. Columbia shares Israel's national hero's experience in outer space and investigates how NASA's faulty communication allowed for the spacecraft's disastrous reentry that widowed his wife and left his children brokenhearted.

Payload specialist Ilan Ramon

At Colombia's launch, Ilan's family cheered from the bleachers and wept with excitement. For the sixteen days that Ilan circled the Earth, he corresponded with his family through emails and video conferences. Ilan's wife says their separation inspired new emotions between them that was, “like falling in love again.”

But, sadly, their excitement and new found love for Ilan only made his surprising death more painful. At one point, Ilan's elementary school age son, who was particularly close to his father, shares one of the emails he sent him. “All my friends want your autograph,” while sitting on the couch in his living room, the little boy slowly reads, “It's cool having a dad...” He can't finish the sentence. He takes in short breaths to hold back his tears, while his mother's soft touch consoles him.

Columbia shows interviews of both NASA officials in charge of the mission and critics of NASA, who were all devastated by the disaster and are attempting to understand what went wrong. What's most frustrating is that NASA had videotapes of the takeoff that suggested the damage was serious, but no one investigated it fully. There seems to have been a breakdown of communication between the managers of the mission and the NASA engineers who knew to be concerned for Colombia's safety. Had they recognized the threat the hole presented, the astronauts lives might have been saved. One critic of NASA points to the fact that the astronauts have the suits required to move outside the spacecraft and their ladder would have reached the site of the hole that would have allowed them to examine and perhaps fix the hole.

For Ilan, the awesome feeling of being in outer space brought up John Lennon's song “Imagine.” “Imagine there's no countries/ It isn't hard to do/ Nothing to kill or die for/ And no religion too/ Imagine all the people/ Living life in peace,” Lennon sings to a smooth melody. Heard in space, these lyrics would be particularly poignant for an Israeli. The song played at Ilan's funeral. Unprepared for death, his love for “Imagine” was one of the few testaments he left his wife.

[edit] Production

Filmmaker Naftaly Gliksberg has made a number of political documentaries, ranging from the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin to global anti-Semitism to an upcoming film about Israel-Iran relations in the 1990s.^[1]

Gliksberg met Ramon in Houston before his travels into space. Although much of Israel celebrated Ramon as a national hero, Gliksberg, initially, did not see him as a good subject for a documentary. "I'm a very cynical guy. I don't believe in human heroes," the director once said in a phone interview. ^[2] In fact, Gliksberg told Ramon, jokingly, "You are a nonstory; you have no prostitute sister; you are from a very well-off family." ^[1]

[edit] Reception

Columbia has shown at a number of Jewish Film Festivals from 2004 to the present. In Variety, Joe Leydon said the film "pays heartfelt tribute to Ilan Ramon" and called the documentary scrupulously detailed.^[3]