No joke: COLBERT headed for space

Who says government agencies can’t have a sense of humor?

NASA is preparing to send what is probably history’s most expensive treadmill to the International Space Station, and it will carry with it one of popular culture’s most popular names: COLBERT, as in Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report.

Cobert, whose political satire show often skewers taxpayer-funded programs like NASA, urged his viewers to submit his name to the space agency’s poll on what to name the Node 3 module that will be added to the station next. As a result, “Colbert” was the top vote-getter.

Recognizing that such popular adulation should be acknowledged (and, likely, that it wasn’t good to name part of a major international space presence after a sharp-tongued comedian), NASA christened the treadmill, under development for two years, the COLBERT. That stands for Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. A step up from its old name, the terribly banal T-2.

“I think it’s great for NASA that Mr. Colbert got his audience interested in the space station,” said Curt Wiederhoeft of Wyle in the article on NASA’s news site. He is the project manager for the treadmill under the bioastronautics contract. “Comedy Central attracts a lot of younger viewers, and the space program’s going to need the next generation’s support and interest.”

Wiederhoeft further noted the treadmill should last as long as the space station does. Designed to handle 150,000 miles of use, he speculated it would probably see just 38,000 miles of use by station personnel.