NASA Names an Asteroid After 'Star Trek' Actor Wil Wheaton (cnet.com) 126
"An asteroid going boldly through the universe now carries a new name that honors actor Will Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation," reports CNET. An anonymous reader quotes their article.
The announcement showed up on Twitter Wednesday from NASA's Ron Baalke, who describes himself as a "space explorer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory". Wheaton is in good company with other Star Trek alumni. Asteroid 7307 Takei is named for Sulu actor George Takei and 68410 Nichols gets its name from Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura. There's also asteroid 4659 Roddenberry for Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
"Today, I found out that I kind of get to be in space and live right here on Earth..." Wheaton wrote on his blog Wednesday, describing his life-long interest in space exploration. "As soon as it gets dark here, I'm going to walk out into my backyard, look up into the sky, just a little above Sirius, and know that, even though I can't see it with my naked eye, it's out there, and it's named after me."
"Today, I found out that I kind of get to be in space and live right here on Earth..." Wheaton wrote on his blog Wednesday, describing his life-long interest in space exploration. "As soon as it gets dark here, I'm going to walk out into my backyard, look up into the sky, just a little above Sirius, and know that, even though I can't see it with my naked eye, it's out there, and it's named after me."
Can't wait (Score:5, Funny)
to see Sheldon's reaction!
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Haha didn't even think about that. If Sheldon doesn't get one named after him next I'm gonna be pissed.
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Sheldon already has one. Minor planet 246247 Sheldoncooper
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Sheldon already has one. Minor planet 246247 Sheldoncooper
That's his spot, and don't forget it.
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It would be pretty awesome, when someone finally gets there, if they place that couch on the planetoid.
Wesley? (Score:2)
The boy?
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The funny part is that Wheaton the actor is just as annoying as Crusher the character. He likes to think people couldn't separate him from his character, but the truth is they are one and the same. Just read his whiny ass blog for proof.
insightful informative and underrated
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The boy?
Which one?
The tool, the fool or SJW superstar? You decide.
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Yeap, he's turned into a smarmy little bastard, fuck him, seriously.
I've posted why previously, people perpetuating shared blocklists of groupthink are wankers.
Cool (Score:4, Informative)
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They did--it doesn't get his name, it's named *after* him.
The official name is "soDamendAnnoying" . . .
hawk
Asteroid Wilwheaton? (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh, I'd expect the asteroid to be called "Wheaton", like they did with asteroids "Takei", "Nichols", "Roddenberry", but instead they went with "Wilwheaton" [nasa.gov]. I guess it's not bad, just a bit strange ;)
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Don't tell the POTUS...otherwise he'll adopt a new naming scheme for them, involving his name.
There isn't an asteroid big enough to bear his ego.
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This will be great for NASA's Space Flight program! Trump will insist that big-ass "TRUMP" logo signs be placed on all of his asteroids, so he will fund NASA to build a big-ass fleet of spaceships to do the hauling!
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If I had my way every rocket that NASA launched would look like something off NASCAR. Every spot on every rocket that wasn't mission critical would be up for sponsorship. Oh the irony of watching a big ass rocket with viagra down the side rising into the Florida sky one morning.
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I'm no SJW. In fact, I hate them as much as you do. Still, its fun to make fun of Trump.
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No, what bothers people about SJWs isn't that they call for equal rights, but that they call for special rights for some, and silencing (less rights) for others.
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Just Google "Obama refers to himself in speech" (Score:1)
LMGTFY [lmgtfy.com]
Jeez, Obama referred to himself 40-something times in a speech celebrating the Cubs winning the World Series:
Obama refers to himself 40 times during Cubs visit to White House [theamericanmirror.com]
It may have been the Chicago Cubs’ day at the White House, but that didn’t stop President Obama from repeatedly talking about himself while honoring them.
In what he called his final ceremony at the White House, Obama delivered roughly 22 minutes of remarks about the Cubs’ World Series win, and in the process, managed to refer to himself 40 times.
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Maybe he posts as APK! That would explain so much.
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Funny, when are you going to correct your errors instead of attacking everyone who points them out to you?
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Funny, I will reiterate, but I see 0 attacks there from me, I see you bad mouthing, name calling, and making shit up, but no attacks coming from me. Perhaps you should look up the definition of attack again.
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Thank you again for pointing to one of your disproven statements. I love it when you provide the examples yourself, it makes it so much easier for everyone to see the issue.
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Trump already has a Moth named after him called "Neopalpa donaldtrumpi". It has yellow-white "scales" on top of it's head which prompted the naming. =)
Shut Up Asteroid! (Score:1)
Now we can tell an asteroid to shut up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Unless Will hears about it and gets triggered. https://www.reddit.com/r/Dayst... [reddit.com]
Then he'll block you. https://twitter.com/wilw/statu... [twitter.com]
Best Asteroid (Score:2)
NASA is saving a certain name for the best, classiest asteroid. At least I think they said "asteroid".
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"I know asteroids, I name asteroids the best, only the best. Everyone agrees with me. Wheaton is a loooser and therefore got a loser 'roid. I know smart people who tell me it doesn't even have silver in it. What kind of rock-head would get a roid without silver!? Terrible idea. They should name it 'Wil the Loser' or 'Will the Rock Head'. I like people who don't pick duds."
Misspellings (Score:2)
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You may also find that auto-correct will add the extra L to Wil - certainly for me, "Wil" is highlighted as being a wrong spelling.
It's not always NASA (Score:1)
Everything that happens in space isn't done by NASA.
NASA doesn't name asteroids, the IAU (International Astronomical Union) does. The IAU Minor Planet Center documents the names in a monthly list.
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Sheldon Cooper and Jim Parsons both have asteroids named after them, I can't see how he would be jealous, if anything, he had one first.
The asteroid 246247 Sheldoncooper was named after Sheldon.[69] In 2012, a newly discovered species of bee was named Euglossa bazinga, after the character's noted catch phrase, "Bazinga!"[70]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
He could even rub it in Wheaton's face that he also has the bee.
And 8621 Jimparsons (1981 EK7)
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.c... [nasa.gov]
William F--king Shatner (Score:2)
doesn't even have an asteroid yet.
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Fire at Will !! (Score:1)
Mr Worf, fire at Will !!
Then the annoying little sprog dies in a hail of phaser blasts
Not the best choice from what I understand (Score:1)
Didn't Wheaton leave Star Trek because he didn't like the work and thought it was holding back his career? I have to admit he has made a pretty good go of his career after leaving the show (though I think he had some significant difficulties early on) but if you were naming asteroids based on Star Trek Actors I would think that there would be quite a few more who are deserving of it before you got to Wheaton (Dorn, Brooks, Auberjonois, Meaney, Visitor, etc).
Re:Not the best choice from what I understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't Wheaton leave Star Trek because he didn't like the work and thought it was holding back his career?
He apologized for that at a convention with most of the TNG cast there; it's on Youtube somewhere. And it's not like his concerns were entirely ungrounded given the hatred his character generated (which came as a surprise to me when I found out, perhaps because I was much younger than he was when I first watched TNG.)
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Well, the captains tend to do well afterwards. And Troi.Riker did Gargoyles. And Burton did Reading Rainbow.
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LeVar Burton did Reading Rainbow long before TNG.
"Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport" :)
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a pity they didn't make a series based on the kind of background that Tasha Yar had
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that hiding from rape gangs [wikia.com] wouldn't be the family-friendly entertainment that Star Trek is known for.
LOL (Score:2)
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Scraping the bottom of the barrel if they named something after him. Other than the Star Trek Next Generation, WHAT has he done? NOTHING.
You should not make the mistake of confusing the actor with the character.
Yes the character "Wesley Crusher" was horrible. We all know that. Wil knows that!
It would seem only the star trek writers didn't know that.
Wil Wheaton the actor, and actual real person, has actually done quite a bit more and is in fact quite a technology geek - something you would think Slashdot readers would appreciate.
He's been in the movie Stand by Me, which is a pretty big classic. He's been in Toy Story, also a big financial
Re: LOL (Score:3, Informative)
He's a sanctimonious virtue signaling male feminist arse. He talks about his mental illness which would be great but then is all over a movement that declares that men don't have any problems even though white men were 70% of suicides in 2014.
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^^^^ He's transcended 'doing good for everyone' as a social justice person and become full warrior bastard, saying ignorant, shitty things about others because X is opressed, Y must be evil.
He's become the brat people accused him of being all those years ago, fuck him.
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Funniest thing he did, I think, was when he appeared at the club The DNA Lounge, in a mock fight against television's other most annoying character: Barney the Dinosaur.
Wil/Wesley won, after someone had handed him a toy lightsaber.
Again proving that Star Wars is better than Star Trek.
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Wesley Crusher was awesome. I loved him when I was a teenage boy.
Rewarded for destroying Federation property (Score:2)
(No wait, god damn it, that was a stellar core fragment. The depressing part is I actually remembered that. And yes I know it was necessary to buy Data enough time, blah blah blah.)
Thanks NASA! (Score:1)
Pathetic. (Score:2)
Pathetic. Naming asteroids after a fake person.
Barclay (Score:5, Funny)
When will we see asteroid Barclay?
Shut up, Wesley (Score:1)
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Chances are whoever you are thinking about already has one.
There are also half a million more asteroids currently waiting for a name so it's not like we're going to run out of opportunities soon.
Yes he was CleverNickName (Score:2)
He used to post here, not sure if he still does or not. was big into the EFF... heck he even did some of those celebrity game shows where he donated his winnings to the EFF..
Avoid Clickbait?! :) (Score:2)
Surprisingly not mentioned in the summary above, the name of the asteroid is "391257 Wilwheaton".
See http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.c... [nasa.gov] for more details on the asteroid itself.
How annoying? (Score:2)
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Actors are the most revered figures of modern civilization. Their job is to...uh, yeah, read things others have written.
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