With his photogenic, boyish good looks and modest demeanor, Col. Ilan Ramon became an instant media sensation in Israel as both a symbol for nationalist pride and as diversion from the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an unwanted national election campaign, voting for which took place four days ago, while he was in space.

Seven days into his flight, a headline in the Jerusalem Post captured the sentiment: "Astronaut lifts nation’s spirits."

"The entire country stood unified behind an Israeli who represents it," said a story in the daily newspaper Maariv. "So fly, Ramon, slice through the sky, float above us--and we will cross our fingers for you."

He also had a keen sense of Israeli and Jewish history and his place in it, which struck a chord with many here. And he recognized the significance his countrymen put in his flight because it resonated with him, too.

"Being the first Israeli astronaut--I feel I am representing all Jews and all Israelis," he said in an interview published by Israel's Foreign Ministry. "I'm the son of a Holocaust survivor--I carry on the suffering of the Holocaust generation, and I'm kind of proof that despite all the horror they went through, we're going forward."

In an interview with NASA, he noted that his mother, who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz, was a Holocaust survivor, and his father had fought in Israel's War of Independence. "I'm kind proof for them, and for the whole Israeli people, that whatever we fought for and we’ve been going through for the last century--of maybe in the last 2,000 years--is coming true." In talks with Holocaust survivors, he said, "You tell them that you’re going to be in space as an Israeli astronaut, they look at you as a dream that the could have never dreamed of. So it’s very exciting for me to be able to fulfill their dream that they wouldn’t dare to dream."

His wife seemed to agree, although she admitted to more pre-flight jitters than her husband.

"This is definitely exciting--it seems like a dream," she said in an interview before the mission. "I don't want to talk about fear. We're not talking about fear. I'm sure NASA is doing everything that is possible not to take any risks and chances," she said, adding, "The most calm and relaxed person is Ilan."

Ramon recognized the impact his achievements were having on the people in Israel, who have been buffeted by two years of Palestinian attacks that have killed about 700 Israelis.

"There is no more important period in which it is good to make people happy," he said in a pre-flight phone conversation with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "It is an honor to represent the State of Israel." In a conversation from space with Sharon that was carried live on television, Ramon said, "From here in space, Israel looks like it appears on the map--small but beautiful."

Ramon was born on June 20, 1954, in Tel Aviv, and received a bachelor of science degree in electronic and computer engineering from the University of Tel Aviv in 1987.

A colonel in the Israeli Air Force, Ramon, 48, was a former fighter pilot and weapons specialist who took part in Israel's famed 1981 bombing of the Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak, near Baghdad, before it became operational.

Ramon clocked more than 3,000 hours as a combat pilot in A-4, Mirage III-C and F-4 Phantom fighter planes, and he logged more than 1,000 in the U.S.-built F-16. He was an F-16 squadron commander from 1990-1992.

He fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 war in Lebanon.

He was selected to be Israel’s first astronaut in 1997 for a launch that was originally planned for as early as 1999. But at least 18 technical delays postponed the launch for several years. When he learned that he had been selected as Israel's first astronaut, Ramon said in an interview, "I really jumped almost to space."

One of the main experiments Ramon was involved in was the filming and tracking of dust particles from sandstorms in the Sahara Desert, and their impact on the climate and environment. One of the coordinators of the experiment, Yehoyahin Yosef, a professor of planetary physics at Tel Aviv University, gave Ramon a small, pocket-sized scroll of the Torah that Yosef had used to study for his bar mitzvah when he was a 13-year-old boy in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Like many astronaut's, Ramon took a variety of personal effects with him into space. His wife, Rona, gave him four poems, and his father gave him photographs of the family. His 15-year-old son Asaf and Ramon's brother, Gadi, both gave him letters to be unsealed and read only after he was in orbit. Israel's president, Moshe Katsav, gave Ramon a microfiche copy of the Bible, about the size of a credit-card, to carry aboard. He also took a pencil drawing entitled "Moon Landscape" by a 14-year-old Jewish boy, Peter Ginz, who was killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

Ramon said he would take other items Jewish items and symbols as well, but he kept those secret.

"I'm going to carry special things and try to express something about the unity of the Israeli people and the Jewish community," he said in an interview. "I have some ideas, but for the time being, I will keep them deep inside of me. It will be a surprise."

He also took along a "chemical garden" experiment from a local high school in Kiryat Motzkin, a suburb of the port city of Haifa, about 50 miles north of Tel Aviv. The experiment involved growing crystals in space. The crystals were supposed to grow in colors of blue and white--the colors of Israel's flag.

The lift-off was attended by about 300 Israelis, including Ramon's family and friends, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon, and numerous officials form the Israel Space Agency. Security was especially heavy at the launch site because of concerns over possible terrorism.

After watching the lift-off, his wife told Israeli reporters, she received a taped telephone message her husband had left just before boarding the shuttle. "We are happy, excited, and we are getting on board the space shuttle now," he had said. "See you in February."

Ramon was an avid snow skier and squash player. He once said that his most memorable experience was a three-week trek in the Himalayas of Nepal and participating with his wife in the births of all four of his children.