NASA must now ponder whether it is more dedicated to democratic principles or to stodgy, boring, loftyish names for its new toys as Stephen Colbert handily won the online contest to name the new module of the International Space Station (ISS):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090330/sc_nm/us_space_colbert_3
He got his viewers (and their bots) to vote en mass to name a bridge in Hungary after him, did they think he would miss a NASA project?
Maybe this will lead to an image update for NASA. No more 1950's inspiry names like Discovery, Serenity (sorry Joss), Lethargy, ... The future will be littered with pop culture references: the Simon Cowell Magnetic Field Array (SCMFA) or the Grey's Anatomy Orbital Mind Control Laser (GAOMCL). Maybe there could be commercial tie ins: the Aquifina Lunar Water Detection Probe (ALWDP) or the Viacom Astrometric Gammaburst Inventory & Naming Array (VAGI... um, hmm, this one turned out badly).
Excitement.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
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