Colbert Wins Space Station Name Contest

As we speculated a couple of weeks back, it has come to pass. Reader mknewman writes to tell us that comedian Stephen Colbert has won the vote to have his name immortalized (or at least until it crashes) as the moniker on NASA's newest addition to the International Space Station. We can but wonder what NASA will do now. "NASA's mistake was allowing write-ins. Colbert urged viewers of his Comedy Central show, 'The Colbert Report' to write in his name. And they complied, with 230,539 votes. That clobbered Serenity, one of the NASA choices, by more than 40,000 votes. Nearly 1.2 million votes were cast by the time the contest ended Friday."

Re:Honorable Way Out for NASA

[Cassius Corodes]

I'm sure we solved a similar problem here on earth... if I could only think what it was... perhaps fixing it in place with one of hundreds of different products...

Re:Colbert trumps Scientology; everyone wins.

[bonch]

Naming it Xenu would have hurt Scientology, not helped it. Xenu is considered top secret by the Church of Scientology and its lawyers, and they sue people who post the texts--they forced Slashdot to remove a comment for the first time in its history. People wondering what Xenu is would look it up and find out about OT III. It would have been a great blow to have that out there. Thanks to Colbert and his mindless viewers who do everything he says, that won't happen, and the opportunity is gone.

Consider me biased since I'm sick of Colbert's schtick, and I'm sick of his college kiddie fans who parrot everything he says and spam his videos to Digg.

Re:RIP

[clem]

I say we get an early start and begin naming our spacecraft and space stations in the fashion of Iain M. Bank's Culture [wikipedia.org]. Gravitas? We don't need no stinking gravitas.

Re:NASA won

[Rigrig]

All right, but apart from the Pretty Pictures, Light-Emitting Diodes, Infrared Ear Thermometers, DeBakey's Ventricular Assist Device, Artificial Limbs, Aircraft Anti-Icing Systems, Highway Safety Grooving, Improved Radial Tires, Chemical Detection, Video Enhancing and Analysis Systems, Land Mine Removal, Fire-Resistant Reinforcement, Firefighting Equipment, Temper Foam, Enriched Baby Food, Portable Cordless Vacuums, Freeze Drying Technology, Water Purification, Solar Energy, Pollution Remediation, Better Virtual Software, Structural Analysis, Internet-Connected Ovens, Powdered Lubricants, Improved Mine Safety and Food Safety Systems, what have we ever gotten from NASA?

Re:Colbert trumps Scientology; everyone wins.

[merreborn]

Colbert trumps Scientology; everyone wins.
It's not mentioned in the article, but what brought this all up in the first place was the fact that "Xenu" was winning the write-in vote before he asked viewers on his show to write in his own name instead. Xenu is the galactic overlord from Scientology myth.

You make it sound as if this is a victory over scientology.

On the contrary, as I understand it, Xenu is more akin to Scientology's satan, than their god -- not a name they'd be trying to promote themselves. The effort to vote for Xenu was almost certainly an action of anti-Scientology protesters -- "Anonymous" being a likely culprit, what with their recent activity and affinity for online stunts like this. (of course, any depiction of "Anonymous" as a cohesive group with any sort of organization or leadership is misleading -- Anonymous is more of a flash mob)

The WP article on Xenu [wikipedia.org] seems to support this theory:

Critics of the Church of Scientology have used public protests to spread the Xenu secret. This has included creating web sites with "xenu" in the domain name, and displaying the name Xenu on banners, and protest signs.

Re:Colbert trumps Scientology; everyone wins.

[Hal_Porter]

All the people who did what Colbert told them should know that whether your part of an ironic cult or a normal cult, it's still a cult.

Yes, a Mistake

[DesScorp]

Mistake? How so? It's pretty obvious that the purpose of the naming-competition was to get people involved and excited.

Howard Stern could get legions of his fans excited about the project too. I still wouldn't want a station module named after him.

Re:So Colbert Nation greater than the Browncoats

[quenda]

Why do these "marriage is so harsh" sort of jokes always get moderated as "insightful

The moderators are married. Marriage is OK, but there are two big points:

• ladies: your man will never change. His faults will not go away when you marry.
• gents: your wife will change.

Just get a written agreement on everything before you marry. Work, kids education, number of kids, money, ... Including minimum frequency of sex. It may seem awkard, but it is so much easier that way.

Re:So Colbert Nation greater than the Browncoats

[elrous0]

The woman would just ignore the contract. My ex-wife (like so many wives) had a wonderfully self-serving memory. I could have gotten it in writing, had her sign it, and held it right in front of her face--and she still would have denied ever agreeing to it. They ALWAYS change after you marry them. David Letterman has been with Regina Lasko for 23 years together. They have a kid, and have lived together most of that time. And he finally married her last week. And I guarantee you, she has already begun to change from the woman he knew a week ago.