AN AMERICAN astronaut with Irish links is to receive a civic reception this week in Cork following his time on the International Space Station.
Ireland’s “adopted astronaut”, Dan Tani, who is married to Cork woman Jane Egan, went to the space station last October and was expected to be back in Houston, Texas, by Christmas. However, technical problems affected the space shuttle Atlantis, and Tani eventually made it home to the US in February.
The astronaut, his wife and two daughters are heading to Co Cork this week for a holiday. While in Ireland Tani plans to visit schools to tell pupils about his time in space.
This Wednesday he will be in schools in the Kinsale area before he is given a civic reception in the town. He will also visit secondary schools in Cork city and county over the next three weeks.
On June 5th he will be given a civic reception at Cork City Hall.
His itinerary for the trip, which ends on June 25th, also includes his attendance at the Discover Science Primary Awards.
Tani’s trip to Ireland is eagerly awaited by his Irish in-laws, Mary and Larry Egan. They are looking forward to showing him and his family a new nephew who was born on the day the astronaut returned from space.
Tani met his wife Jane in 1998 at the Old Head golf club in Kinsale. They married two years later. The couple now live in Houston and have two daughters.
Tani’s much-delayed return to Earth was made more difficult by the fact that his mother, Illinois-based Rose Tani, died in a car crash in mid-December.
Tani intends to write a report on the experience, something he said might help a future astronaut deal with a similar bereavement.