April 15th, 2009
Treadmill C.O.L.B.E.R.T
That’s Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill.
So Stephen’s name won’t grace Node 3 itself but the very important exercise equipment of astronauts. Representing NASA, astronaut Sunita Williams delivered the news on Colbert’s show that the node will be named Tranquility, even though “Colbert” received many more votes.
Stephen rationalized that the Node is just a container and that “however far the space station goes, the treadmill will have gone a few miles further.”
“We don’t typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said, adding: “We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on.”
