It would be a bit of mischaracteri-zation to say that billionaire investor Eytan Stibbe is following in the footsteps of Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, though Stibbe is indeed about to become just the second Israeli to fly in space.Nineteen years after Ramon's flight, which ended tragically as the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry after a 16-day research mission, Stibbe is preparing to launch on a privately funded journey to the International Space Station (ISS)."It's a completely different story," says Ran Livne, director general of the Tel Aviv-based Ramon Foundation, an educational nonprofit overseeing Stibbe's flight in partnership with Israel's ministry of innovation, science and technology and the Israel Space Agency (ISA).
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