Name of Space Station Node 3 surprise to Stephen Colbert

William Atkins
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 18:06

Science - Space

Astronaut Suni Williams appeared on The Colbert Report Tuesday night to make the much awaited announcement that NASA’s Node 3 will be called “Colbert.” However, things didn’t quite work out as expected.


NASA announced the name Tuesday, April 14, 2009 with the help of Expedition 14 and 15 astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams and Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."

The name “Colbert” received the most votes in a “Help Name Node 3” contest held by NASA to name the soon-to-be delivered Node 3 to the International Space Station.

In all, 1,190,437 people voted for established names or submitted a write-in name for the NASA contest. The top ten write-in names voted on were:

1.    COLBERT
2.    MYYEARBOOK
3.    GAIA
4.    XENU
5.    SOCIALVIBE
6.    BUDDY
7.    UBUNTU
8.    TRANQUILITY
9.    SYNERGY
10.    VISION

The four established names suggested by NASA when the contest started were: Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity, and Venture. Serentiy got 70% of the vote, followed by Legacy (13%), Earthrise (9%), and Venture (8%).

According to “The Colbert Report,” Sunita “Suni” Williams told Stephen Colbert, the host of the TV show, that NASA was not going to be called Node 3 the “Colbert.” Instead, it was calling it “Tranquility,” to honor the Apollo 11 Moon landing site of the Sea of Tranquility.

Page two describes the conversation between Williams and Colbert.