On the afternoon of Jan. 14, 1986, Terry Lafferty took up his position at a bench on the second floor of James River Corp.'s Neenah Technical Center and waited for the call from NASA.
In front of him were nine, small cylindrical devices that looked like funky French coffee presses. Each was about four inches in diameter and filled with pulp slurry.
At the same time, astronaut Steve Hawley unpacked nine of the same slurry-filled devices from a storage box aboard the space shuttle Columbia.
Hawley grabbed a small microphone, looked at the video camera and became the first -- and so far only -- person to make paper in space at the suggestion of an Appleton high school student.
"What we're going to do is attempt to conduct the paper fiber experiment. This is on behalf of Daniel Hebert, who's a student from Appleton, Wisconsin, and his corporate sponsors, the James River Paper Company. What the purpose of the experiment is is to try to remove gravity as one of the three parameters in the formation of fibers," Hawley said in archive footage posted to YouTube.
As Hawley got to work shaking the slurry, Lafferty, more than 210 miles below, did, too.
Space shuttle mania collided with an 'extremely locally grounded' experiment
Hebert and James River, now part of Georgia-Pacific, vaulted Appleton, the Fox Cities and the paper industry into the annals of space history.
To date, it's only time paper has been made in space. Yet it was largely forgotten locally until late 2024, when Neenah Technical Center leaders tasked archivist Andrew Holbrook with changing that.
"It's sort of been known about, but no one in our building knew anything about it. We didn't have any of the materials," Holbrook said.
The experiment and the artifacts Holbrook collected are part of Cosmic Kraft, a new History Museum at the Castle exhibit to celebrate the experiment's 40th anniversary in January 2026.
It began with an Appleton West High School chemistry teacher and student years before the Columbia lifted off from Earth in early 1986 with the slurry-filled devices safely packed on board. It involved a high school science contest, a little psychological motivation, the local paper industry's ingenuity, months of work, the region's manufacturing base, and a community spirit still alive in the Fox Cities.
It was a major moment for the North American paper industry that involved the contributions of eight or nine companies from multiple states and Canadian provinces, Holbrook said. But he added that so much about the effort is rooted in the Fox Cities.
"It dials into national icons like NASA and the space shuttle, but it's extremely locally grounded. It was in a local high school, in a local research lab. The [devices] was fabricated by a local plastics company," Holbrook said.
Hebert hopes the exhibit and story helps inspire young students to explore science and technology careers, like the opportunity 40 years ago inspired him.
"It's great to see this thing resurrected. I like to see that," Hebert told the Appleton Post-Crescent. "If it could inspire another kid someplace to pick up something, to create their own experiment or think about working for space exploration, then it was all worth it."
Before there was STEM education, there was the Shuttle Student Involvement Program
The spark that would launch Hebert's experiment into space on board NASA mission STS-61C goes back to 1983 and Appleton West High School chemistry teacher Dave McKay's classroom.
McKay was a member of the National Science Teachers Association which in 1982 partnered with NASA to hold the Shuttle Student Involvement Program. Long before STEM became a thing, the SSIP encouraged high school students to explore science and technology disciplines by offering an out-of-this-world prize: To see their experiment conducted on the space shuttle.
One of McKay's students, Bill Akmentins, in 1982 submitted a proposal that was selected as a national finalist, but did actually fly. McKay said he used Akmentins' success to motivate Hebert to submit an idea in 1983.
McKay, 85, retired and still in Appleton, said his only suggestion to Hebert was to narrow his focus to something related to the local economy. The contest required a 1,000-word proposal that explained the rationale, design and potential results. But McKay also knew an entry to have any shot at flying in space would require a corporate sponsor/mentor.
"I said 'Maybe look for something in the paper industry,'" he said.
Hebert, who's now a surgeon with a practice in Montana, doesn't remember exactly how the idea took shape. He remembers his family had a lot of interactions with the paper industry and thought it would be a good thing to have local sponsorship or support from the get-go. The one contribution he knows he made to the experiment was pushing the water through the screen and collecting it in a reservoir.
Hebert's experiment asked if paper produced in a zero gravity environment would see a more even distribution of fibers compared to paper made with the assistance of gravity on Earth. Hebert's hypothesis was that it would.
McKay remembered one day Hebert showed up at school with a prototype apparatus he'd built himself. It was large, rudimentary and included a tube going behind the piston so there was a spot to store the water.
"I was like 'Wow, how did you do that?' It was just amazing," McKay said.
Hebert won the regional competition, and was then named a national winner and earned a trip to the contest's national symposium in Washington, D.C. and consideration for a spot on a future shuttle mission.
"It was really unbelievable," McKay said.
First, though, Hebert needed to refine the experiment's design and size by working with mentors at both NASA and in the paper industry. He just had to find someone now.
Fortunately, McKay knew a guy.
McKay turned to a fellow Rhinelander native working at James River
In one of those only-in-Wisconsin connections, McKay knew Maurice "Maury" Mead, who worked for James River in the NTC's tissue and towel group. McKay and Meade both grew up in Rhinelander and both were ham radio buffs.
McKay asked and Mead said he did know someone to whom he could take the idea: Richard Bauer, the NTC's vice president of research and development at the time. Bauer died in 2018 at age 90 and Mead died in 2020 at age 91.
Lafferty, then 38 and amid a 40-year career with James River, was in the NTC's specialty papers group working on things like cereal boxes, inkjet paper and microwave popcorn bags when Bauer called and asked him to stop upstairs.
"I thought, 'Uh-oh, what did I do?" he recalled, thinking he was in trouble.
Bauer gave him the details of the assignment and Lafferty happily agreed to meet with Hebert.
Hebert said Lafferty, more than anyone else, deserves the credit for taking the idea from an experiment on paper to a reality.
"The reason it flew was because of James River. Terry did all of the work. He took on the lion's share of the work. And James River continued to fund the development," Hebert said.
An 'extremely clever' device that looked like a French press
Hebert's device took inspiration from a fundamental papermaking device, the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) handsheet former. It's essentially a tabletop device papermakers can use to make a test sheet without having to shut down an entire paper machine to test an experimental pulp slurry's chemistry or contents.
The handsheet former pulls a fiber mixture through a mesh screen to produce a sheet for testing, using gravity to separate the water from the sheet. But to conduct an experiment in microgravity, Hebert's device turned the idea on its head and pushed the slurry through the mesh, leaving the sheet behind. But the device needed to be modified so it was small enough to fit in the shuttle's cargo lockers and able to withstand the rigors of spaceflight. Most importantly, it needed to be leakproof.
"Of all the concerns, that was the biggie at NASA," Lafferty said. "They did not want free water flying around in the shuttle."
Hawley stressed that concern, as well.
"There are a lot of ways for free-floating liquid to get into the electronics. Also, some liquids could represent a hazard if they were inhaled or got into the eye," Hawley wrote.
The answer proved to be a very small, self-contained plunger system that would press the water through the mesh, leaving the fibers behind. The plunger portion also included a screw-on cap to stop leaks.
Holbrook called it an "extremely clever design" most people in the industry would probably recognize.
"What was not familiar was needing to make it bulletproof," Holbrook said.
Appleton plastics company answers the call
They found help with fabrication very close to home. Eagle Supply & Plastics Inc., now Eagle Performance Plastics, had the experience and capabilities needed to fabricate the devices.
Holbrook said Eagle was able to shrink the device and use advanced materials like bulletproof acrylic and O-rings built to the same specifications as those used on the shuttle itself.
"Without [Eagle,] we wouldn't have been successful. In the end, I don't know how many different concept samples they ended up making, but it was a lot to come up with something that would work," Lafferty said.
McKay explained they needed 18 devices to test not just the fiber formation, but whether the results would differ based on adding nothing, positively charged cations or negatively charged anions to the pulp slurry.
"You like to run triples in an experiment to make sure everything's okay," McKay explained. "If it's three of the same results from different conditions, it's more probably true."
It took the better part of two years of work between NTC, Eagle and NASA before the prototype was small and secure enough to get NASA's approval to fly on the shuttle.
Lafferty remembers his supervisor was "not real happy" about how much time spent on a project that many at the NTC expected would never fly.
"I don't think anybody thought in a million years that we would win," Lafferty said. "It kind of shocked everyone."
No one's going to put a paper machine in space
Lafferty and Hebert got whisked away to the Johnson Space Center for a three-day session in Houston ahead of a potential launch in 1985.
Hebert, still a teenager at the time, doesn't remember much of what he did in Houston, other than that every time he got to rent a car, he requested a Camaro and that it was a great time.
Lafferty said the press conference the winning students and mentors participated in caught him a bit off guard. He also vaguely recalls some concern from NASA that James River had used Hebert to avoid having to pay the agency for the experiment. He assured NASA officials James River had no plans to put a paper machine in space.
"There was no benefit for us other than the experience," Lafferty said.
McKay said he believes the experiment intrigued NASA more than officials let on.
"You want to know the differences of the paper [made] in gravity versus no gravity," McKay said. "It's one of the reasons his proposal got to fly. I think NASA wanted to see what the difference was."
The experiment initially was scheduled to launch Dec. 18, 1985. NASA invited Hebert and McKay down to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch. Hebert by 1985 was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy and getting permission for him to attend the launch required a special call from a James River executive to the academy's superintendent.
He went down to Florida in mid-December 1985, but the launch was postponed from Dec. 18 to Dec. 19, then scrubbed 14 seconds before liftoff. NASA ended up delaying the launch to Jan. 6, 1986, and both McKay and Hebert went home disappointed.
The mission faced four additional delays that pushed the launch date back from Jan. 6 to Jan. 7, then to Jan. 9, then to Jan. 10, then to Jan. 12, 1986.
On board the space shuttle Columbia, the experiment took about 20 minutes
It was Jan. 14, three days into STS-61C, when it was time to conduct Hebert's experiment.
Hawley said student experiments had to be small, simple and quick so they could fit into the crew's busy schedule pf pre-flight training and while up in space. The astronaut shared his recollections of the experiment with Holbrook and provided the same details to The Post-Crescent.
Hawley also remembers the day because he was dealing with a virus going through the crew.
"Even though I had a fever, I wanted to do the experiment," Hawley said.
In the archive video, Hawley called the compression action "a pretty good bit of exercise" after the first pressing and enlisted fellow Mission Specialist George "Pinky" Nelson to complete the experiment. Video footage indicates the experiment took Halwey and Nelson about 20 minutes.
Hawley in the video observed that at least one of the devices appeared to leak a little free water out into the cabin. In 2025, Hawley recalled none of the devices had leaked on the way up, that the Columbia was equipped with a humidity separator to suck any moisture out of the cabin, and that there was not a noticeable increase in the volume of moisture the separator collected.
"I think for the papermaking experiment, we would have needed a fairly dramatic leak for it to have been a problem," Hawley said.
The experiment was a little easier for Lafferty at the NTC.
"I think I got a call from Houston saying [Hawley's] ready to set up and do it," Lafferty said. "So I did it. It all went fine. It was over in no time."
The results would have to wait for the Columbia's landing on Jan. 18, 1986 and then for NASA to send the devices back to the NTC. Once James River had all 18 of the devices together again, Lafferty carefully removed the 18 sheets from the devices, placed them on blotter paper and ran a roller over them to dewater the sheets.
The sheets were sent to the Appleton-based Institute of Paper Chemistry -- now renamed the Renewable Bioproducts Institute and located at Georgia Tech -- for testing. Scientists put the papers through an M/K Systems Inc. Formation Tester that takes thousands of micro-opacity measurements in about 15 seconds and spits out a number that indicates the quality of the fiber formation. The lower the number, the more even the fibers are distributed.
The results surprised everyone: The space paper had superior formation and less flocculation, a negative that occurs when paper fibers clump up due to their electric charge, making bumpier sheets.
"When you see the data, it's not real close," Lafferty said.
Exciting results eclipsed by tragedy
In many ways, the experiment was the product of that unique time in American history where education programs, the Fox Cities paper industry, and the nation's passion for space exploration all aligned just-so.
But the moment would be short-lived.
NASA, in the wake of the experiment, showed the most interest in follow-up experiments based on the positive results from Hebert's experiment, Holbrook said.
But interest in further study came to an end abruptly when the space shuttle Challenger broke up 73 seconds after launch on Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crew members, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, died.
Lafferty said James River felt it wasn't very appropriate anymore to promote the experiment's success or pursue any further collaboration with NASA. And NASA pretty much wound down the Shuttle Student Involvement Program after that. To Hebert, that was a big loss.
"The thing that breaks my heart about the whole thing is the program was a good program. It was inspiring kids. It got kids thinking about how to run a scientific experiment and more importantly how to get involved in space exploration as a career choice," Hebert said. "I don't think we've ever really recaptured that since Challenger and the Columbia [disaster in 2003]."
McKay remembers going to about 10 schools in the area to do a presentation on the experiment. Lafferty got invited to present the experiment's results to the 1986 TAPPI conference in New Orleans. But that was about it.
"There's been very little about it since then," Lafferty said.
Until Holbrook called.
Renewed interest in space paper experiment leads to History Museum at the Castle exhibit
Holbrook spent more than a year now trying to better tell the story of how the NTC and an Appleton student got NASA to make paper in space as its 40th anniversary approaches. But it also served as a reminder of the cutting-edge research the NTC does.
"The Neenah Technical Center is still there and still thriving under new ownership. And under Georgia-Pacific, there continue to be dozens of PhD scientists there doing creative experimentation," Holbrook said.
He tracked down McKay, Lafferty, Hawley and Hebert to gather their memories of the experiment. He sought documents, photographs, drawings, articles and the whereabouts of the 18 devices, since the NTC had few records of its own.
The story that began to take shape resulted in an in-house display at the NTC and interest from the History Museum at the Castle, in Appleton. Dr. Dustin Mack, the museum's executive director, said the story's myriad Fox Cities connections and the way it was lost to time made it an ideal subject for the museum.
"It's amazing how that happens. It not anyone's fault. The world moves on and new stories take their place," Mack said. "But this is one where it's such an intersection of science, technology and the local education component. It's a story that deserves to be shared again with the community."
The exhibit, Cosmic Kraft, opened Nov. 15 and will stay up at least until late January. Mack said museum and NTC staff are trying to arrange to have Lafferty and McKay do a talk about the exhibit closer to the experiment's anniversary.
The experience left an impression on Hebert, who pursued science-related public service opportunities by being admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy and then becoming an orthopedic surgeon. But what still stands out to Hebert about the experiment 40 years later is the generosity and support of the community, James River, the Appleton School District, Lafferty, McKay and others.
"Having traveled and lived around a good portion of the world, [Appleton] was one of the the most-friendly, community-supported areas I've ever lived in. That Wisconsin attitude and support was incredible."
What happened to the 18 devices?
There is still a minor, unsolved mystery to Holbrook's work: What happened to the 18 cylinders? Where are they now?
Holbrook and the participants were only able to track down four, leaving 12-14 unaccounted for. Lafferty remembers that he kept a couple of the devices, but lost track of them over the years. He fears they disappeared as he moved from Neenah to Cincinnati and then back over several years.
Two that flew on the Columbia ended up in the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking collection at Georgia-Tech University. Hebert had one that flew on the shuttle, too. And McKay donated one he had to the Atlas Science Center.
Hebert donated his to the NTC for their archives to complement their original drawings, technical documents and project communications. He also donated another rare artifact from the experiment to the exhibit: A sheet of the paper made as part of the experiment.
"It was a pretty great breakthrough for us," Holbrook said of Hebert's donation. "It was a great, great find and a generous donation when Dan sent us one of the [devices] that flew on the Columbia."
Contact business reporter Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or [email protected]. Follow him on X at @JeffBollier.