On Friday evening, space shuttle Discovery launched, docking with the International Space Station (ISS) the following evening. The shuttle mission includes a crew swap and a resupply for the station. And for Stephen Colbert fans everywhere, it's the equipment that went up with the shuttle that is most exciting. Here's why.
The ISS is being assembled piece-by-piece, similarly to a prefabricated home. The individual modules are constructed here on Earth, then sent up to the station and assembled on site. The third and final American node module will be added to the station early next year. And so in March, NASA held an online poll to name this module. Voters were able choose between several pre-chosen names, or write in their own. Soon afterwards, Stephen Colbert called upon fans and viewers of his Comedy Central program to vote to put his name in space. Weeks later, with the poll closed and votes tallied, the name Colbert won by a bit of a landslide. Astronaut Sunita Williams made a guest appearance on the Colbert Report to announce the name of the ISS node. And the winner? Tranquility. The studio crowd was not pleased. NASA's reason for not using the winning name from their online poll was that they "don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people." Quite a disappointment indeed.
There was good news, though. Among the equipment being sent to the ISS in the current shuttle mission is a zero-gravity treadmill named the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT. This decision by NASA to show some humor and an ability to compromise has made many Colbert fans, myself included, quite giddy. What is most notable about the situation, however, is that NASA may have made a major move to draw renewed interest from a younger generation; a generation that seems to see space flight as little more than a novelty.
Learn more about the ISS and follow the current space shuttle mission, as well as future missions at http://www.nasa.gov/missions/index.html.
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Lets hope some revived interest comes around because NASA's budget is "unsustainable" according to a recent independent panel commissioned by Obama. Getting beyond low earth orbit with the replacement for the shuttle will need some hefty increases in funding. I am looking forward to the Mars Science Labratory project.
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