From dinosaurs to Palestine...

Wikipedia can be strangely addictive, and it is interesting to see where your searches will eventually take you. I was reading up on dinosaurs, strangely enough, and became curious then to read about the history of the Earth. From there, it was a short jump to reading about the history of human evolution and it was near the end of that article that I came across references to the arrival of Man in space. I clicked on the link to read about the International Space Station and began following up on that. It was there that I saw a link for the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Whilst reading about it, I remembered that the Israeli states' first astronaut was on board, Colonel Ilan Ramon. I read up on Ilan Ramon and it turns out he had quite a history with the Israeli airforce. He has medals for what the Israelis call "The Yom Kippur" war, as well as Operation Peace for Galilee. He was also the youngest pilot in a group who took part in an Israeli raid on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor which killed ten Iraqi soldiers and a French researcher. Ironically, the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded over an area in Texas called Palestine. Thus ended the life of Israel's first astronaut...what a strange world we live in.