On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:39:48 -0600, "Joseph S. Powell, III"
wrote:

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 Kibo Lab is the same dimensions it has always been planned to be.

The U.S. modules shrank in a cost-cutting move during one of the
redesigns in the early 1990s (this happened before the Russians came
aboard and the inclination changed, so it wasn't because of that.)

Columbus uses the MPLM spaceframe, probably as another cost-saving
move. The MPLM was sized that way to leave room in the payload bay for
non-pressurized cargo, if necessary.

Brian