Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope

Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope

Edit: Thursday, Jan. 31, 9 p.m. on PBS - check local listing. My local will air Monday, Feb. 4th.

"Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope" is presented in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the shuttle disaster of Feb. 1, 2003, that took the lives of the seven-member crew of astronauts. The documentary focuses on Col. Ilan Ramon, Israeli fighter pilot and the first Israeli to embark on a space mission. He viewed his own mission as an obligation to history—he would carry into space a miniature Torah scroll given to a young boy in a secret bar mitzvah held in the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. The young boy had survived, to become Israel's lead scientist for the space mission. Col. Ramon's private mission would in the end be at least partially fulfilled by his friend, astronaut Steve MacLean, a moving testament to faith and fellowship.