Highland Park native and U of C alum John M. Grunsfeld will be making his fifth trip to space and fourth trip to the Hubble space telescope. He's scheduled to be on the shuttle Atlantis's October mission. According to NASA, "Dr. Grunsfeld has logged over 45 days in space, including 5 space walks totaling 37 hours and 32 minutes." more ›

To the shock of no one, being an astronaut is amazing. So says Lombard native Daniel Tani, who's currently on his second mission in space. Tani's living in the international space station, building and repairing ... stuff, and taking spacewalks that make him think about how fragile the earth is. You can watch some video updates here. We recommend the Thanksgiving one — wait until they go through all the different astronaut food they eat. It's really cute. more ›