When I was researching some facts to talk about for this evening, in turns out that both of my grandfathers immigrated from Japan 100 years ago. So in fact 2006 is actually the 100th anniversary of my Japanese American family here. So it ties in unbelievably well that we’re celebrating Japantown — whose idea is sort of the emotional home of the Japanese American community — in the same year that our family is celebrating our 100th anniversary here.

My father’s family, the Tanis, lived in J-Town, lived on Post and Buchanan. All three (siblings) lived here before the war, and then relocated. Then my father actually got a job on the East Coast, so he did not return to California after the War. My mother’s family grew up in Florin, near Sacramento. She and her siblings also grew up and stayed in California. Her brothers returned to Japan, but everybody else returned to California. So that’s my California connection, both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. So I have a lot of first cousins spread over the West Coast.

I always think that everybody wants to be an astronaut. Who doesn’t want to be an astronaut? But it was really serendipity. I was working in the aerospace industry and somebody came into the office, it was in 1992, and said “hey I read that they’re taking applications for the new astronaut class.” So we just called and got applications, filled them out, and didn’t think much of it. I say it’s like buying a lottery ticket. Well I didn’t fill out this application expecting to be chosen. I knew that it was an incredible long shot. But two to three years later I got the surprise of my life when they called me and asked me if I wanted an interview. I never thought I would even get that close. But I interviewed in 1995 and was selected that year.

We actually have a pretty extensive DVD library out there. Nowadays people have books wired or sent up to them, sort of virtual books. Most pleasure reading is sent up electronically. We spend a lot of time taking pictures (and) of course family pictures and movies are sent up to us. I expect to be listening to a lot of Cubs baseball games.

(The year) 2008, man, that’s going to be our year (laughing). I could be up there for the World Series next year — who knows, it could be the Cubs. Stranger things have happened...Anyways, radio programs are on MP3, and they can beam us up files.

: Probably not. That’s probably a two- to three-year flight in duration. I would say that there’s no lack of volunteers to do that but I’ve got a new family and it’s going to be hard to leave them for (even) three months.

Huge. There were four members of my class on that flight. My best friend in the office was the pilot, Willie McCool. We were very close to his family. Huge hit. It was a pretty tight community — at that time there were only about 110, maybe 111 astronauts, so we knew each other very well…We train as a class, so we form a pretty tight relationship and friendship. To lose four class members on one accident was quite difficult.

It certainly gives pause… It doesn’t make me less trustworthy of the program. It’s a reality check that what we do is very dangerous, and that we trust the people that build and maintain and operate these machines.

My personal opinion is no it’s not. It’s a fantastic machine, and it’s a shame that we’re going to retire it in the next five years, four years. I think there’s a lot more missions that we can do with it. But the new following vehicle, that we’ll be flying hopefully 10 years from now, looks very exciting. So I’m envious of the astronauts who are going to be flying that. It probably won’t be me because probably that’s a little too far into the future.

Frankly I didn’t know El. The first time I heard of him was after the Challenger. He was not an influence in me becoming an astronaut. Once I became an astronaut I met his wife, and she’s fantastic. We’ve become very good friends with his wife. So certainly in retrospect I’m really honored to follow in his footsteps and sort of carry on his tradition not only for his family but for the Japanese American community.

You know, everything floats in space, right? The bathroom on the shuttle you would recognize as a toilet but it uses a vacuum like here on earth we use gravity… Thank goodness that I’m in the shuttle program 25 years into its maturity, because (back then) they really had problems with the thing. Malfunctioning, not working right — not a very pleasant thing.

There’s some really great ones. There’s hot and sour soup… Mac and cheese, potato au gratin’s pretty good. And I really crave the chicken flavored rice; I ate all of those. Something about them were comforting for me to eat those.

I’m training as the Expedition 16 flight engineer. If the shuttle schedule holds to what we have planned right now, I will ride (to the International Space Station) a year from now, early August ’07, and I will stay there for about the next three or four months.

That’s a good question. Certainly another five years or so. My wife and I have talked about what we’re going to do next. Houston is a very difficult place to live climate-wise — it’s very scorchingly hot in the summer. So we dream of moving away to a friendlier climate... With only 14 or 15 more space shuttle launches left, the chances of me getting another space shuttle mission is frankly quite small, so I don’t know if I would stay around with little hope of getting another mission.

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