Project Columbus, 1983-1984

Aeritalia, an Italian aerospace company, contracted Disher to work on Project Columbus in 1983. Project Columbus was a planned European Space Agency (ESA) contribution to the proposed international manned space station, which was then being developed under U.S. leadership. The name "Columbus" was a reference to the scheduled launch date of 1992, five hundred years after Christopher Columbus's initial voyage to North America. Project Columbus was derived from an earlier NASA/ESA collaboration known as Spacelab. Spacelab was a scientific research center inside a space shuttle orbiter cargo bay. Unlike the earlier Skylab, Spacelab could return to Earth after each mission. With Columbus, ESA hoped to improve on Spacelab with "free-flying, autonomous elements which can either be docked to the planned American space station or deployed independently for extended missions in near-earth orbits." (Press release, Box 5, Folder 48). The materials include articles and publications, papers, presentation outlines and written notes by Disher. Information pertaining to both Spacelab and Columbus is present.