NASA Rejected ‘Colbert’ as the name of ISS Node 3 and named it “Tranquility” in commemoration of the first manned Lunar landing in 1969. Colbert did not come away empty-handed though, since the ISS treadmill has been dubbed the ‘Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,’ or COLBERT.
From NASA:
The International Space Station module formerly known as Node 3 has a new name. After receiving more than a million responses in an online poll, NASA is naming the node “Tranquility.”
The name Tranquility was chosen from thousands of suggestions submitted by participants on www.nasa.gov. The “Help Name Node 3” poll asked people to vote for the module’s name either by choosing one of four options listed by NASA or offering their own suggestion. Tranquility was one of the top ten suggestions submitted by respondents to the poll, which ended March 20.
Colbert, as you may recall, prompted his fan base to write in ‘Colbert’ as the name for Node 3. NASA received a lot of “Colbert” support, but selected “Tranquility.”
I, for one, am amused by the way it turned out. Although NASA was trying to gracefully placate Colbert with this treadmill business, it seems like a smackdown to me.
Click on the logo above to see the full-sized version (courtesy NASA).
Good, no offense to Colbert but, that would seem like lowering the level of NASA if they used his name.
Load bearing in a light weight, no, weightless environment.
Yeah, that’ll fit.