The International Space Station has been manned since the Expedition One Crew were launched on the 02 November 2000. The Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy will delay activities on the ISS but the programme will go on. A considerable amount of research has in fact been done in space and will continue to be done and it is important that human beings and not just robots go into space both because robots cannot do some of the tasks and for medical research For Europe, in particular, the Columbus laboratory will be an enormous opportunity to make a quantic jump in space science.Main fields of research will be human fisiology, biology, material and liquids science.