By Catherine Edman cedman@@dailyherald.com Carefully outstretching their right hands - as if they'd just been consecrated - two girls excitedly walked away from their brush with celebrity. Will those hands ever get a washing, a reporter asked one of the teens.

By Catherine Edman cedman@@dailyherald.com Back home for the first time since concluding a fourth-month space mission, Lombard astronaut Dan Tani thanked those who sought to lessen the tragedy of his mother's death.

By Catherine Edman cedman@@dailyherald.com On what would have been his mother's 91st birthday, Lombard astronaut Dan Tani finally returned to Earth.

By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret News When kids ask Dan Tani what it takes to be an astronaut, he smiles and says good grades are a plus, but even more important, "you have to be nice enough that someone would want to live with you in a tin can for six months." Speaking Friday to a roomful of children at the Salt Lake Main Library, Tani described his latest mission to space -- a four-month stay on the International Space Station.

By Elizabeth Miller, The Salt Lake Tribune Jul. 19--It was that call in the middle of the night everyone fears. NASA astronaut Dan Tani celebrated Christmas and his 47th birthday in the four months he spent late last year as a flight specialist on Expedition 16 on the international space station.