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Heartbreaking news reaches son in space

Astronaut Daniel Tani hears his mother has died. He's obligated to stay in orbit.

By Times Wires
Published December 21, 2007

CHICAGO - In her Lombard, Ill., home, Rose Tani kept a shrine to her astronaut son filled with newspaper clippings of his recent launch, photos of him holding his two children and a framed image of him in a NASA uniform with the inscription: "Mom, I owe it all to you. All my love. Dan."

As Daniel Tani orbited in the international space station Wednesday, about 200 miles above Earth, he learned that his 90-year-old mother had died. A freight train had smashed into her car outside of Chicago.

It's a heartbreaking situation NASA officials believe no other American astronaut has experienced.

Tani's wife and a flight surgeon on the ground broke the news in a video conference with the 46-year-old astronaut.

The soonest Tani can return from space is late January. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is docked at the space station but must be reserved in case the two Americans and one Russian aboard need to evacuate the outpost in an emergency.

"He is obviously pretty sad," the astronaut's brother, Richard Tani, said in Thursday's Chicago Sun-Times. "He was pretty close to her. We are all close to her. She was loved by everyone."

NASA prepares for all sorts of contingencies, and bad news from home is one of them. All astronauts are asked whether they would want to know about family emergencies right away or whether that information should be held back if they are preparing for an intense task such as a space walk, said Dr. Sean Roden, Tani's flight surgeon.

Tani, like nearly all his colleagues, wanted to know immediately, Roden said. NASA spokesman Jim Rostohar said Tani will be given time to grieve in the space station, which is the size of a 3-bedroom house.

While no other U.S. astronaut has lost a close relative in space, several have learned about accidents or major illnesses in their families, said NASA flight surgeon Dr. Smith Johnston.

One of three astronauts aboard the space station, Tani, a flight engineer, launched Oct. 23 from Cape Canaveral on the shuttle Discovery. His mother traveled to Florida for the launch. During a space walk last month, he sent special greetings to his mother.

"I know my mom's watching on the Internet in Chicago, so hi mom!" Tani said. He was to have returned to Earth this week, but problems with fuel gauge sensors on the Atlantis shuttle delayed the launch until at least Jan. 10.

Information from the Associated Press and Chicago Tribune was used in this report.

[Last modified December 21, 2007, 01:27:38]