In Twenty Hundred and Oh-Eight
Columbus Docked a Few Days Late

That was supposed to be like the child's mnemonic:

In Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Two
Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

but of course my version makes no sense unless (and then it's just not funny) you're one of those fortunate souls currently enraptured by the technical ballet of the planetary space program. After being grounded on earth by flaky fuel sensors for two months Atlantis finally launched on her long overdue mission delivering the European Space Agency Columbus module to the International Space Station.

After a day's delay shuffling STS-122 personnel the shiny new Columbus laboratory was installed successfully after a long eight hour spacewalk to cheers and handshakes in the module's control center at Oberpfaffenhofen Germany. After a few computer glitches and atmospheric checks (for unwanted particulate stowaways) the interior space has been cleared for the crew without precautionary facemasks and protective goggles.

Columbus is an important contribution of the European Space Agency, boosting Alpha's scientific capacity by ten standard payload racks (five outfitted at start) and four external payloads. The attachment also expands the station's pressurized volume by almost three thousand cubic feet and includes an eye-catching right angle turn! Alpha grows by leaps and bounds these days it seems, with the addition of Harmony and now Columbus and soon, God willing, the Japanese Kibo modules.

As Columbus approached its installation position spacewalker Rex Walheim lightheartedly remarked, "Let's give Peggy a new room for her house," referring to station Commander Whitson. The arrival and attachment of Columbus happily coincided with the Commander's birthday, for which she has also received an attractive pair of stars-and-bars socks.

The European manned space pioneers were asked (in an orbital interview aboard Alpha) about the importance of their work. "Our mission is one small part of building the ISS," they said. "To learn how to spend months and years in space, the effects it has on people and on equipment. This is what we need to learn to go to the moon or the other planets. We're learning to live and work and do research in space and where we can go in the future."

So far Atlantis flies without problem, having exchanged a working nitrogen transfer system for a faulty unit that will now be returned in the payload bay of the orbiter. One final EVA is planned to rig two external experimental platforms to Columbus, then her thermal systems have been approved as is for reentry. May she return home without harm.