Glenbard East grad takin' a walk in space

Early Sunday morning, Lombard's own Dan Tani will step outside of his enviable room with a view.

Of course, he'll go into a slightly unusual environment: space.

Tani's scheduled for the second of five spacewalks planned for the crew of the space shuttle Discovery, which parked at the international space station this week. This walk's scheduled to last more than six hours and tackle three separate jobs.

The 1979 Glenbard East High School graduate has his work cut out for him.

Along with astronaut Scott Parazynski, Tani will detach a solar array that's being moved to a new spot on the station, remove and replace a remote power control module for the station's robotic arm, and attach key pieces to the outside of the new Harmony module installed Friday.

Starting early Sunday, much of the crew's mission will be carried live on the NASA channel offered by many cable and satellite providers. A live video feed also is available on the shuttle mission page at www.nasa.gov.

Though the times are subject to change, as of late Friday, this was Tani's spacewalk schedule:

• The astronauts will spend Saturday night in an airlock attached to the space station. This "campout" method helps eliminate nitrogen from their systems so they can avoid the "bends," the dangerous condition frequently referred to by scuba divers. While the men are in the airlock, the air pressure is lowered during the night.

• 12:08 a.m. Sunday -- NASA will wake the astronauts so they have a chance to eat the breakfast they brought with them to the campout the night before.

• 12:38 a.m. -- The astronauts will put on oxygen masks as the pressure is raised to match the station. They have the opportunity to go into the rest of the station for a while for such essentials as a hygiene break and heating up coffee before their spacewalk.

• 1:38 a.m. -- They return to the airlock where the pressure is dropped again, and they start the lengthy process of getting into their spacesuits. Once suited up, they'll spend 30 minutes waiting in the airlock and adjusting to new pressure.

• 4:58 a.m. -- The spacewalk is expected to begin. It's supposed to last between six and seven hours.