Dan Tani
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas 77058

Dan Tani was born in Ridley Park, PA, but grew up in Lombard, Illinois. He attended public schools and graduated from Glenbard East High School in Lombard in 1979. He studied at the University of Chicago for 2 years before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and receiving a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1984. After working for 2 years at Hughes Aircraft Company in El Segundo, CA as a design engineer, he returned to MIT and received an MS in mechanical engineering in 1984.
Dan then worked for Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, VA - first as a structural engineer, and then as as an operations manager, collecting, training and leading members of control rooms for various rocket launches. He was the operations lead for the Transfer Orbit Stage, which flew on the Titan rocket in 1992 and on STS-51 in 1993. He then was the launch conductor for the Pegasus unmanned rocket from 1993-1996.

Dan was selected as a mission specialist astronaut in 1996. He spent 2 years in astronaut candidate training, and then held technical jobs in the astronaut office in the computer branch and the EVA branch.

In January 2001, Dan was selected as a crew member for the STS-108 mission. In December of 2001, STS-108 launched, docked with the International Space Station, delivered the Expedition 4 crew to the ISS, and returned the Expedition 3 crew to earth. During the mission, Dan performed a 4 hour space-walk, and served as the flight engineer for the launch and landing of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Dan is married and has a cat, Koshka. He enjoys golf, running, music, and travel.