With all the excitement experienced during the past few days with the
attachment of the Columbus module to the ISS, I was reminded of the types of
Space Station modules proposed back in the 1980's....
These tended to have a longer design, filling up the entire payload bay of
the Shuttle.
Does anyone know why these longer modules were rejected in favor of the
shorter ones now used on the ISS?
The older designs certainly had much more room.