A 16:07 minute description of Space Lab, the world's first reusable space laboratory built in Europe and launched in December 1983 and the international collaborative project IML, the International Microgravity Laboratory. Through interviews with ESA astronaut Ulf Merbold and ESA Project Scientist Claude Brillouet the video explains what microgravity is and why it is important for research in many different scientific areas including astronomy, Earth observation, biology and human physiology. Research was also carried out in the IML on the "critical point", the transitional state of certain materials such as the moment when ice changes to water.