When the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over the western United States in February 2003, an international crew of seven astronauts lost their lives. Also lost was a tiny Torah scroll of historic significance that Payload Specialist Col. Ilan Ramon, Israels first astronaut, had taken along as a personal item.

The tiny Torah was a precious artifact from the Holocaust and Ramon had chosen it as a symbol of perseverance. It had been smuggled into the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by an Orthodox rabbi from Holland and entrusted to a 13-year-old boy on the day of his Bar Mitzvah on the condition that he keep it safe and one day tell the world what happened in the camp.

The boy survived the Holocaust, became a prominent Israeli scientist and, more recently, served as principal investigator for Israels dust aerosol experiment carried aloft on Columbias last mission. When Ramon was looking for a fitting symbol of the people of Israel to take along on his journey, the scientist, Joachim Joseph, entrusted to him the tiny Torah.

The story of the Torahs journey from the depths of hell to the heights of space, as Ramon once put it, is the subject of a television documentary currently in production. Maryland Public Television has agreed to help bring it to the air in 2005 and the Space Foundation, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based advocacy organization, is helping with fundraising.

Courtney Stadd, a former NASA chief of staff who is serving as associate producer and technical advisor on the documentary, called The Journey of the Tiny Torah, described the project as a labor of love.

You cant bring the crew back, but this is a project that allows us to carry on at least one of the missions for one of the crew, Stadd said in an interview. Actually, you could say the whole crew.

Stadd said Ramons shuttle crewmates all knew the story of the tiny Torah and, he believes, all were proud to be a part of its journey.

Commander Rick Husband, a devout Christian, took it upon himself before the flight to consult a Houston-area rabbi so he could, as Stadd explained, check up on Ramon to help make sure he was observing his kosher diet and marking the Sabbath during the 16-day mission.

Stadd said that while The Journey of the Tiny Torah includes footage from Columbias last mission including an on-orbit videoconference with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during which Ramon displays the Torah and tells its tale the documentary is not primarily a space story, but rather a story of the triumph of the human spirit.

We want to ensure this is an uplifting story, Stadd said. This is about a promise that was fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled every time the story is told.

Shooting began in March when Stadd and Executive Producer Dan Cohen accompanied the Columbia families on a trip to Israel. The state-sponsored visit had been promised by Ramon to his Columbia crewmates. After the accident, Ramons widow and the Israeli Embassy extended the invitation to the families of Ramons six crewmates.

Cohen and Stadd are producing the documentary to be shown in the high-definition TV format and hope to air the hour-long program on the Public Broadcasting Service in 2005. In March, Maryland Public Television offered to sign on to the project as the presenting station, a deal that could pave the way for national distribution via public television outlets, according to Cohen.

The project also is getting support and encouragement from NASA and the space community, Stadd and Cohen said. The Space Foundation, for example, agreed in January to solicit charitable donations on behalf of the project. In April, the Space Enterprise Council of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce invited Stadd and Cohen to give a presentation on the documentary. Stadd called the event a prime opportunity to reach potential contributors.

Elizabeth Eisenstat Wagner, the Space Foundations vice president of strategic partnership development, said the story Stadd and Cohen are setting out to tell through the documentary aligns well with the Space Foundations mission. This story will help people realize that the human instinct to explore not only provides promise for the future, but ironically, also provide keys to understanding the past, she said.

She said the Space Foundation has received numerous small contributions and is working with Stadd and Cohen to find a major investor for the project.