{"id":121140,"date":"2025-10-14T09:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/121140\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:47:10","slug":"space-week-2025-brings-former-nasa-astronaut-dan-tani-to-mic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/121140\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Week 2025 brings former NASA astronaut Dan Tani to MIC"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIC over the moon as former NASA astronaut touches down for Space Week 2025. Pictured with former NASA astronaut Dan Tani were brothers Theo and Hugh Egan of Killinure National School, Boher. Co. Limerick.<\/p>\n

Mary Immaculate College welcomed former NASA astronaut Dan Tani to its Limerick campus on Tuesday, October 7 for Space Week 2025<\/p>\n

\"\"Former NASA astronaut Dan Tani giving a presentation to local school children in CRAFT Maker Space, MIC.<\/p>\n

Mary Immaculate College<\/a> (MIC) welcomed former NASA astronaut Dan Tani to Limerick on Tuesday, October 7, celebrating the international celebration of science, exploration, and innovation for Space Week 2025.<\/p>\n

Tani, who spent over 130 days in space during two NASA missions including four months on the International Space Station, met with local primary school children in the morning, delivering an engaging and interactive presentation. before giving an inspiring public talk later that afternoon on the theme \u2018Living in Space\u2019.<\/p>\n

The visit formed part of a national Space Week road trip coordinated by Munster Technological University\u2019s (MTU) Blackrock Castle Observatory (BCO), led by BCO\u2019S founder and MTU Head of Research, Dr Niall Smith. This year\u2019s Space Week (4-10 October) featured several hundred events across the country under this year\u2019s theme of exploring what it means to live and work in space.<\/p>\n

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Speaking at his public talk at MIC<\/a>, Dan Tani said he was eager to inspire Irish audiences to see space as a field open to everyone, \u201cIreland is huge in Space Week\u2014they have so many events and so much enthusiasm. My personal goal is to make sure people here know they can be involved in space. We\u2019re going back to the Moon and on to Mars, and we\u2019ll need experts in everything\u2014engineering, law, business, food science, even fashion design. Ireland is rich in talent and skills, and I want to see many more Irish people get involved in the space industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on how his time in orbit changed his outlook on life and developed his pride of citizenship, Tani said, \u201cWhen you look down from the space station, you see this beautiful planet rolling beneath you, and you realise how connected we all are. I felt such pride and kinship with everything on that planet\u2014it reminded me that we\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Eleanor Walsh, STEM Outreach Project Officer, Enterprise and Community Engagement at MIC, said the visit was an extraordinary opportunity for students and the wider community to engage with real-world science and space exploration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were thrilled to host former astronaut Dan Tani at MIC as part of Space Week. His passion and humility really resonated with both young learners and adults alike. An event like this shows how science can spark curiosity, creativity, and a sense of shared global connection\u2014and that space exploration is for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Tani\u2019s talk at MIC was one of the final stops on his Space Week Ireland tour, which also included events in Cork and Kerry. Space Week is Ireland\u2019s national celebration of space and STEM, delivered in partnership with MTU, Research Ireland and the European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO) Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIC over the moon as former NASA astronaut touches down for Space Week 2025. Pictured with former NASA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,45479,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-121140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mary-immaculate-college","12":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}