Claustrophobia sufferers must find it dreadful; researchers, on the other hand, call it a “scientific jewel”: Columbus is the name of the laboratory of extremes that is opening a new chapter in European space travel. Almost 7 metres long, 4.5 metres wide, 13 tonnes in weight and windowless, at first glance the space lab resembles an enormous tin can that you can only enter and leave through a tiny airlock. And yet, with these dimensions, Columbus docks perfectly onto the International Space Station (ISS). The flying research tube will ascend into the heavens this spring on board a space shuttle. The launch was originally planned for December 2007, but problems with the American transporter have delayed its departure. The delay is no problem for Johann Dietrich Wörner, Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR): “This mission is a milestone.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) has invested 880 million euros in the development and construction of the laboratory. That makes Columbus very much the largest European contribution to the ISS. Germany assumed the overall control of the project. As the main contractor for Columbus, EADS Astrium in Bremen led the consortium of 41 companies from 14 countries that was responsible for development, production, integration and testing. It was no simply task – the research module consists of two million parts. Its construction took over ten years, during which the engineers had to find completely new solutions. “We were unable to fall back on prefabricated equipment, but had to re-invent practically everything ourselves,” says Günther Brandt, chief designer at the Astrium Group in Bremen, where the showcase of European research was built. There were constant surprises during the assembly process. For example, when the interior fittings were almost completely installed, the special paint that had been applied to the walls began to peel off. “Imagine what it would be like if paint particles started to float everywhere in the weightlessness of space. So we had to have everything taken out again, the old paint had to be removed and new paint applied,” remembers Brandt. Another problem was fungus cultures, like the ones that repeatedly spread in the Russian space station Mir. A special coating on the interior walls of Columbus and technological fine-tuning now aim to prevent this. Condensation in corners and cracks has to be prevented, because: “Even in a space station, damp areas represent ideal breeding grounds for fungi.”
Germany’s contribution to this European showcase project has not come to an end with the construction and planning of the space laboratory. As soon as the equipment has been turned on inside the silver metallic shell, the Columbus Control Centre at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen will take charge of the scientific work. Its 75 scientists and engineers will have access to 25 cubic metres of space that can be entered by a maximum of three astronauts simultaneously. One of them comes from Germany: Hans Schlegel, 56, travelled into space once before 15 years ago (see box on right). Sixteen so-called racks will await him and his colleagues – units crammed full of laboratory equipment, computers and technical systems that have been mounted on the walls like fitted cupboards. There are even four additional mountings on the external shell to enable experiments to be directly subjected to the special conditions of space: vacuum, radiation, absolute zero temperatures and weightlessness.
They will certainly be used because the planned research programme is jam-packed. The experiments cover subjects ranging from medicine to materials research, from the fundamental physics of liquids to studies on monocellular organisms and invertebrate animals. And, of course, the great question of space research also plays a role: what happens to the human body during periods of weightlessness? In this state, muscle tissue and bone wither away in fast motion. Research in the Columbus laboratory now aims to help gain new insights into an effective osteoporosis treatment. Another experiment, which researchers worldwide are expectantly awaiting, revolves around a kind of miniature Earth. Scientists at Technische Universität Cottbus have devised the experiment, which goes by the name of Geoflow. Using a floating sphere, they want to reproduce geophysical processes that take place in the liquid layer between the mantle and the solid core at the centre of the earth. Two shells, filled with oil, are to provide new answers. Many questions can only be answered in space. That was discovered some time ago by former German astronaut Ulrich Walter: “In space you can gain understanding and insight to make things better on earth.”
