posted 10-17-2007 11:29 PM               

"Today is maybe the first day that I really feel like I live in space. I turned out to be a man who lives and works in space, just like in the movies."

With those words of awe, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon began an entry into his flight diary on day six aboard the space shuttle Columbia. That page of his diary was released to the press Wednesday, as an example of current preservation efforts used to convert the fragile journal into a more stable format.

The remains of Ramon's notebook, which includes 20 pages of hand-written entries, were restored using computer-image enhancement technology and infrared light by scientists in the Israel Police Division of Identification and Forensic Science.

"I think (this diary entry) represents (Ilan's) observations at the high point in his career," said Michael Maggen, director of the Israel Museum's Document Conservation department, which houses the astronaut's diary. "The best preservation will be the facsimile. Then you can use the copy for all kinds of purposes and keep the original intact."

Today, Shuki Kook Studios, which designs commercial art, is in the process of copying the delicate pages with cutting-edge 3D technology that utilizes photography and scanning to make the authentic reproductions of items such as old documents or paintings.

posted 10-03-2008 01:36 PM               

The U.S. space agency returned the diary to Ramon's wife, Rona, who brought it to forensics experts at the Israel Museum and from the Israeli police. The diary took about a year to restore, Zalmona said, and it took police scientists about four more years to decipher the pages. About 80 percent of the text has been deciphered, and the rest remains unreadable, he said.

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.

Most of the pages contain personal information which Ramon's wife did not wish to make public, he said.