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NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert
Posted by
Soulskill
on Wed Apr 15, 2009 08:58 AM
from the running-man dept.
from the running-man dept.
willith writes "The SF Chronicle reports on the results of the International Space Station Node 3 naming contest (which we previously discussed). Comedian and fake-pundit Stephen Colbert conducted a bombastic write-in campaign and repeatedly urged his show's fan base (the 'Colbert Nation') to stuff the ballot box with his name, which resulted in 'Colbert' coming in first in the write-in contest with almost a quarter-million votes. Although the Node 3 component will not be named 'Colbert' — NASA has instead chosen to call it 'Tranquility' — one of the Node 3 components will bear the honor: the second ISS treadmill, which will be installed in Node 3, will be named the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. The formal announcement was made on the air yesterday at 22:30 EDT on the Colbert Report by astronaut Sunita Williams."
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This opens a whole new angle (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe we could get the toilets named RIAA or something?
Tranquility? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tranquility? (Score:5, Interesting)
That was my reaction when I saw the show last night, too.
They not only decided to ignore the write-in winner, but also to ignore the winner amongst the 'finalist' names that NASA had selected.
Based on numbers reported from MSNBC [msn.com]:
From that, we know that Tranquility is under 114,427 ... but we also know [nasa.gov] the relative percentages of the 4 that NASA proposed (which gives us: Earthrise : 24k; Legacy : 35k; Venture: 21k), the total number of votes, and that there were another 4 above Tranquility in the rankings ... even if there was a multi-way tie between Xenu/Socialvibe/Buddy/Ubuntu and Tranquility, and Synergy and Vision got negligible results ... Tranquility couldn't have gotten more than 86k votes.
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Re:Tranquility? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Tranquility? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF is Myyearbook?
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Re:Tranquility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they figured out that everyone immediately jumped to Firefly when they heard Serenity, and they didn't want that association. On the other hand, I question the wisdom of giving it a name that already is hugely significant in the annals of space travel, since it was also the name of the Apollo 11 moon landing site, but what are you gonna do. Every name has some issue with it.
I would have liked them to name the commode after Colbert instead, but this is a pretty clever compromise on its own, and its in keeping with the government's practice of creating cumbersome acronyms for ordinary objects, so I guess it works.
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Re:Tranquility? (Score:5, Insightful)
major slap in the face from NASA
I guess - if an online naming poll is really that big a deal - that this qualifies as a major slap in the face. My personal reaction runs more along the lines of "who the hell cares?"
Parent
Your tax dollars at work (Score:5, Funny)
How long did it take them to come up with the acronym "Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill"?
Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Less than five minutes? Seriously, it's a better use for my tax dollars than at least 60% of government spending.
It's not hard to come up with acronyms.
--ANONYMOUS nagging oxymorognic neogeodesic yuppie-man on universal soapbox COWARD of wayward and radical dichotomies.
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Re:Your tax dollars at work (Score:5, Funny)
Probably not very long, really. The art of the TLA, and the related art of the backronym, are practiced in highly refined form by government agencies and the aerospace industry. NASA, being formed from the union of those sets, brings those arts very near to perfection. It's almost instinctual for them.
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Re:Your tax dollars at work (Score:5, Insightful)
All of ten minutes and it's basically free, massive publicity with almost no effort.
Do you think you would've known about this new ISS module if it weren't for Colbert?
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Re:Your tax dollars at work (Score:5, Funny)
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history repeats itself eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
A better decision than most... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, they DID say from the beginning that they reserved the right to pick a name themselves regardless of the poll's outcome.
I suspect that Colbert himself played a big role in this decision. He isn't going to drop out of character to say so, but Colbert-the-pundit is a character, and I imagine Colbert-the-person wasn't entirely comfortable saddling an "important" component of the space program (all ISS contempt aside) with the name of a comedy character. Their final decision still gave his character plenty of mileage -- "the treadmill is the really important part, the 'module' is just a box that the treadmill comes in" -- while preserving a bit of what many would perceive as decorum.
Re:A better decision than most... (Score:5, Funny)
To be fair, they DID say from the beginning that they reserved the right to pick a name themselves regardless of the poll's outcome.
This is exactly the same idea behind the Electoral College.
Parent
bear the honor (Score:5, Funny)
one of the Node 3 components will bear the honor: the second ISS treadmill, which will be installed in Node 3, will be named the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill.
You better watch your back Article Summary writer. Colbert doesn't take kindly to your type of folk who honor bears.
Re:bear the honor (Score:5, Funny)
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explanation here (Score:5, Informative)
Which made it first place (Score:5, Insightful)
Among all the choices that weren't being driven by bots or ballot stuffers.
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Re:Which made it first place (Score:5, Informative)
Otherwise they're just making themselves liars.
How are they making themselves liars when the page had a big huge disclaimer on it that said they weren't bound by the results?
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Re:Which made it first place (Score:5, Insightful)
That made them liars up front when they were soliciting votes which mean nothing. I guess our national elections demonstrated that people would feel like a part of democracy even when the votes aren't counted, though...
You are comparing a non-scientific voting process with no provision to prevent ballot stuffing and which came with a disclaimer saying that the results weren't binding to an actual election? I think you've ventured away from the reservation on this one....
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Re:Which made it first place (Score:5, Funny)
> It's not rocket science
Is too!
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Re:Well, hm... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably the best thing they could have done. By naming the treadmill after him, they didn't have to name the whole module after him and they still get good publicity from Colbert's show.
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Re:Well, hm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's great. It shows that NASA can take a joke, even a rigged election, and give it a nod. Which is what they have done. Other than naming the module after him, which would have been great too, they acknowledged Colbert with out making a big deal out of it.
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Re:Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
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