Unlike many children born and raised during the Moon’s arrival, Daniel Tani did not dream of becoming an astronomer.
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He was very interested in building things like radios and toothbrushes. However, in the end, his life choices and his career path led him to the place.
He received an engineering degree, started working in the space industry and decided to apply to NASA.
After several rejections, in April 1996, he received a call that said: “It’s a regular call where they never call “astronaut.” All they say is: ‘You want to come down and work for us?’” Tani explained.
“And I said: ‘Yes, indeed, sir, yes, ma’am’ and he stopped, and said: ‘I wonder what I received'”.
Tani spent more than 130 days in space, most of them aboard the International Space Station (ISS), and completed six rendezvous missions, also known as spacewalks.
Although his traveling days are behind him, the idea of seeing the world in a different way is still deeply rooted in his mind, and he joined Euronews Tech Talks to share it.
Looking at the world from the outside
First, Tani pointed out that flying the spaceship is not very fun.
“The suit you are wearing is bulky, heavy and uncomfortable,” he said, adding to that.
to get used to being in the suit, astrologers need to spend a lot of time in it.
“Even if the distance is six or seven hours, you’re in that suit for 10 or 12 hours, and that’s painful”.
Despite the challenges, the experience of performing additional vehicle operations is important,
“The gentleman of opening the hatch and floating and holding on to the space station, you’re going 17,500 kilometers an hour, you look around, and it’s the darkness of space, a beautiful space vehicle,” said Tani. “And now 250 miles under your feet there is Baja California, and now I notice Italy”.
But what Tani remembers about her first space flight is the pressure to make no mistakes.
The future of spatial cooperation
Tani has spent most of her time in space aboard the ISS, a human orbiter that is a joint project between the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe.
Due to its aging nature, the ISS is expected to be decommissioned and decommissioned around 2030-2031, and new space stations developed by commercial actors will take its place.
“That one [the ISS] it has been an excellent example of how international cooperation in the cause of welfare can survive all the political problems and bruises that are happening,” said Tani.
The ISS comes from a US project called Space Station Freedom, which was developed in the 1980s.
In the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the project became more international, bringing together partners from different parts of the world.
Today, even countries that do not agree politically such as Russia and the United States continue to cooperate in orbit, and the question remains whether this cooperation will continue in the future.
“I’m sorry about that because of the channel, but I’m also sad because now the leaders of these countries are not going to meet regularly about something,” he said.
The end of the ISS comes at an interesting time in space.
The growing presence of private actors in orbit, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, questions about the use of space resources as unconventional resources, and the rising competition driven by the increasing number of countries that have access to space, create the space sector.
“Some competition is good, it lowers prices and makes things faster. But it also creates hard feelings and divisions. So I think we’re going to have to find a way to balance those,” said Tani.
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