NASA Names Treadmill After Stephen Colbert

NASA held an online contest to name a new wing to be constructed on the International Space Station and announced the competition on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report." Stephen Colbert urged his viewers to cast votes naming it after him.

As a result, Colbert received almost a quarter million votes, far exceeding the totals of other choices. Nonetheless, NASA exercised management prerogative and chose "Tranquility" as the name of the new wing.

According to William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, Tranquility "symbolizes the spirit of international cooperation."

As a consolation prize to the comedian, Gerstenmaier said NASA is naming "its new space station treadmill the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT."

Colbert even gets a NASA patch with the acronym and treadmill displayed.

Heh.