NASA nixes Stephen Colbert space station
By John Lister
NASA has ignored a public vote to rename a new section of the International Space Station as “Stephen Colbert”. But the comedian’s name will play a smaller role in the station.
The space agency had run an online contest for the public to vote on several NASA suggestion names or opt for a write-in vote. Colbert asked viewers to vote for his name and won the contest with 250,539 votes; the top NASA suggestion of “Serenity” attracted just 40,000 supporters.
Astronaut Sunita L Williams was then booked on Colbert’s TV show to announce the final NASA choice. Despite the vote, NASA opted to exercise its Congress-mandated right to make the final decision.
The agency says it rejected the choice of Colbert as it has a policy of not naming space station hardware after living people. That doesn’t explain why it decided against “Serenity” and instead chose eighth-placed “Tranquility”.
Williams did have some good news for Colbert: the treadmill used to keep astronauts on the station in good physical condition is to be renamed the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. However, that does appear to be little more than a tenuous set-up for Williams to quip, “Everyday somebody will have to jump on the COLBERT.”
Colbert has been responsible for several previous online pranks, to mixed effect. Last year he was selected as Internet Person of the Year in the Webby awards after a successful Google-bombing campaign in which viewers created pages describing him as the “greatest living American” until his Web site topped Google’s results for that phrase.
He unsuccessfully attempted to get on a major party’s ballot for last year’s presidential election, despite having a Facebook group which at one point was attracting 78 new supporters every minute. He also won a public vote to name a bridge in Budapest but was disqualified under rule requiring the winner to be deceased and a fluent Hungarian speaker (though presumably not both at the same time).
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April 15th, 2009
Poor Colbert. Well, at least he still has his fans–and the treadmill. It seems to me that by pursuing his place in this NASA contest, Colbert was not only helping his own show but helping give attention to this new station. Thus, it’s somewhat disappointing they chose to overrule the vote for his name. I watched an good video on this at newsy.com earlier. It kind of looks at Colbert’s trend and gives a few different opinions. Take a look:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/laughing_all_the_way_to_space/
April 16th, 2009
Looks like space doesn’t have a liberal bias.
April 16th, 2009
Serenity LOST by 40,000 votes, it didn’t ONLY HAVE 40,000 votes.
And I’m sad that they aren’t going to name the module Serenity :(