"We couldn't have had a more picture-perfect launch; what anextraordinary way to open the new year," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe told reporters following the morning launch.

O'Keefe lauded the capabilities of Columbia's seven-member crew and extolled the potential of the 16-day scientific mission, during which 80 experiments are scheduled.

O'Keefe singled out payload specialist Ramon - a veteran pilot of Skyhawk, Mirage and F-16 fighters who participated in Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor - as "high caliber" and "a meaningful contribution to the mission."

In a country beleaguered by divisiveness and strife, Ramon's historic trip to space appeared - at least temporarily - to bridge the gaps between Jew and Arab; religious and secular; the haves and have-nots; and left- and right-wingers.

In a news conference prior to the launch, Ramon noted his cathartic effect on the Israeli public. "I think people are very happy to be distracted by my flight," Ramon said.

Even Tiewfiek Khateeb, an Arab Israeli member of parliament, noted the historic nature of the mission.

"Of course I'm proud and thrilled by this historic launch. It's a happy occasion for Israel and for the world's scientific community," Khateeb told Space News in a Jan. 16 interview.

When asked, however, if the good will and national pride generated by the mission might spill over into other areas of Israel's political-socio-economic spectrum, Khateeb replied, "Let's not get carried away. We can't isolate ourselves from reality. This joyous day is little more than an aberration ... until the issue of the Israeli occupation [of Palestinian lands] is resolved and issues of social inequity are addressed."

Ramon and an Israel Air Force alternate astronaut trained for four-and-a-half years for the mission, which was rescheduled three times from its original launch date in 1999.

Inclusion of the Israeli in the NASA team stemmed from a 1995 agreement between former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and then-U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Four Israeli-proposed experiments are slated for the Columbia mission.

They include the Mediterranean-Israel Dust Experiment camera designed to measure the impact of aerosols on cloud formations and rainfall; an examination of the phenomenon of red and blue flashes of light - known as sprites - that appear during lightning storms; an experiment on the effects of weightlessness on bacteria; and a eighth-grade student project that aims to grow a chemical garden in space.