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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."
Name it something else, but hang a signed picture of Colbert in the module. The fans are satisfied, a reasonable name can be applied, and Colbert gets a talking point for a show.
But please, for the love of God, no dancing! Colbert dancing with that freaky grin always creeps me out.
On a similar note, what will Time do if Moot wins the #1 most influential person of the year?
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1883644_1886141,00.html
Yeah! What the fuck have we ever gotten from NASA? Pretty pictures?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Spinoff
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spinoffs2.shtml
Apparently you've never been married.
I think it's important to remember all of the popular, positive attention Stephen Colbert has given to NASA over the years and science in general. He well deserves the name if for nothing else than for the great PR he brings NASA.
Did you even know there was an addition to the space station before it was on The Colbert Report? I didn't.
"I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
-Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
NASA's mistake was allowing write-ins.
Mistake? How so? It's pretty obvious that the purpose of the naming-competition was to get people involved and excited. To raise NASA's profile and garner some free advertising. By allowing write-ins, they opened the door for Colbert to advertise for them. And apparently he drove some 230,000 people to go check out the NASA site, maybe read some other NASA material, talk about NASA with their friends, and so on.
I daresay NASA was quite successful in their effort to gain some publicity. Allowing write-ins was evidently not a mistake.
I don't see why they wouldn't name it "Colbert". I mean, yeah, it's a joke, but it's also good publicity, and what harm does it do?
I think if they don't, it's showing that the people running NASA are sticks in the mud and take themselves too seriously.
As someone else pointed out in a previous thread on this subject, serious organizations, especially ones with government connections, don't like to name things after people who are still alive.
You see, if you name it after a person who has lived out their life, you can evaluate their entire life and make sure that they haven't done anything that you wouldn't want to be associated with. However, someone who is still alive might very well do something in the future (kill someone in a drunk driving accident, get caught with child pornography, shoot their wife, etc) that no one wants to be associated with.
Why do these "marriage is so harsh" sort of jokes always get moderated as "insightful"...
Apparently you've never been married.