Col. Ilan Ramon Memorial - San Antonio, TX, USA - Space Flight Memorials and Exhibits on Waymarking.com

In San Antonio, TX, near Lackland AFB, there is an olive tree planted in memory of Ilan Ramon who died along with all his other crew members when the shuttle disintegrated and burned during re-entry of the space shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003. The space shuttle Columbia had its left wing damaged during liftoff of its space mission STS-107 and this proved fatal for the crew upon their re-entry into earth's atmosphere. Colonel Ilan Ramon was a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force and was Israel's first astronaut. He is also the only foreign recipient of the U.S. Congressional Space Medal of Honor. Col. Ramon kept a diary during the mission STS-107 fight and miraculously, portions of its completed pages were found, having somehow survived the 37-mile fiery fall and having been fortunately found by search crews looking for debris from the crash (2). The prayer garden and the olive tree memorial to Ilan Ramon as an astronaut on the Columbia was "dedicated on March 28, 1999 as a sanctuary of prayer, worship and praise," according to the plaque on one of the boulders in this prayer garden. The memorial to Col. Ilan Ramon is located along the short circular pathway around the pond shaped to scale of the Sea of Galilee at the Galilee Prayer Garden near 6610 HWY 90 West, San Antonio, TX 78227. The tree is in the northeast corner of the prayer garden, close to the San Antonio 9/11 Memorial that is across the street (Old Castroville Rd) from this monument to Col. Ramon.



Supplemental resources:
(1) (visit link)
(2) (visit link)

Hours: Available for public access 24/7. Fee (if no fee, enter 'none'): None How Long a Hike: Street parking is available just yards from the memorial. Amount of time an average person would spend here: Less than an hour Accessible?: yes Location is wheelchair accessible?: Yes

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Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   01/04/2011 WayBetterFinder visited it