Japanese Lab

Called upon by the United States to participate in the International Space Station program, Japan responded with its Japanese Experiment Module program. This program has three main components; these are the Japanese Lab, formally known as the Pressurized Module, the Pressurized Logistics Module, known officially as the Experiment Logistics Module, Pressurized Section or ELM PS, and the Exposed Facility which is not pressurized but is instead directly exposed to the harsh conditions of space.

The Japanese Lab utilizes the unique opportunities of space in a variety of areas from biology to material science.  Various biological processes have already been studied in space, where a process can be observed without the effects of gravity.  An example of an experiment which has been conducted in the past is one studying Rhizobia.  These are bacteria which fix themselves to soybeans, alfalfa, and clover amongst others, and provide nitrogen to these plants.  Studies have been conducted on the space shuttle to try and understand why they fix themselves to some plants but not others, like corn or wheat.  If a way to fix them to corn or wheat could be discovered, millions of dollars in fertilizer costs could be saved by farmers each year.

Considering materials sciences, polymers are used in a wide variety of products on Earth, such as plastic bags, contact lenses, automobile parts and casings for electronics goods.  Aboard the space station new polymers may be created.
 
Metals and alloys will also be studied.  One of the most useful aspects of the microgravity environment is that the ways that various alloys and other metals interact, solidify and liquify can be investigated without the interfering effects of gravity.  For example, alloys of metals with very different densities can be formed in space but not on Earth.

The Japanese Lab will be used for a great variety of research of this nature.
