Space Station Addition Should Boost Science

"If there were ever a program that runs totally smoothly we'd probably be bored," he said. "We work fairly close to the edge of capabilities of human beings, in engineering terms. It's cutting edge technology and you know you're going to get some problems with some things."

ESA has a full slate of basic science and technology programs planned for its module, which will become the second of four planned laboratories on the station. Already aboard is the U.S. Destiny module. Japan's Kibo complex is slated for launch next year. Russia is expected to build and fly the station's last lab, though no launch date has been set.

Thirkettle is clear about what must occur for ESA to feel its money and time on Columbus were well spent.

"It has to work," he said. "It has to be utilized. It has to produce results. It has to do what it was intended to do," he said.

Managers will know that has happened by gauging scientists' interest in using the lab, by monitoring how much money research institutes are paying for space station experiments and perhaps even by the number of Nobel Prize nominations that stem from station research, Thirkettle said.

"To me, the real payoff comes when the guy on the street who pays for all this stuff starts to have a better quality of life through this," Thirkettle said. "Space in general has improved the quality of life for people, with telecommunications, media all of these different things that we take totally for granted now just flat out wouldn't work without space research having been initiated in developing these things.

"There'll be materials, there'll be pharmaceuticals, there'll all sorts of different things that get developed. That will be the proof of the pudding. If it doesn't happen, we blew it and we'd better stop spending money on it," he said.

ESA also is looking toward Columbus to seed a new generation of engineers, scientists and researchers.

"We're not going to develop as a continent with financial services and tourism," Thirkettle said.

As NASA looks beyond the space station to developing spaceships and equipment to return to the moon, its station research program is much narrower and more focused than the programs planned by Europe, Japan and Canada.

NASA cut off funding for all experiments that are not directly related to the new exploration initiative, but its partners fully expect the United States to change its tune once the station is fully equipped and fully staffed with six live-aboard residents available to run experiments.

In exchange for providing the station's framework, support systems, communications, as well as the launch, assembly and maintenance services, NASA is entitled to a large share of space in all of its partners' modules and crew time to oversee experiments.

"The appetite comes with eating," said Columbus manager Bernardo Patti. "Once people find out what is doing on the space station, people will redirect their efforts. If good science is coming from ESA and the others, that might trigger interest and further cooperation."