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to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Stephen Colbert Gets Boost from Pennsylvania Congressman in NASA Naming Contest
Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 2:41 pm - by Matt Campbell. Filed under: Politics.
Stephen Colbert dreams of having his name on this space- bound cylinder that among other things can recycle waste water
Stephen Colbert got the highest number of votes in a NASA Space Station module naming contest. Now U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah wants to ensure that there is “Democracy in Orbit” and is pressuring the space agency to go with the people’s choice. Here’s part of what Fattah released last week in a statement.
”The people have spoken, and Stephen Colbert won it fair and square –even if his campaign was a bit over the top.”
NASA offered four possibilities in its on-line contest to name Nodule 3 in the new international space station, but also allowed write-in votes. Colbert generated 230,539 write-ins with appeals on his late-night “Colbert Report.”
A member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, which oversees funding for NASA, Fattah was quick to add: “This is not about dollars, but it’s got to make sense to the American people. We insist on democracy in orbit.”
NASA has always reserved the right to name the new room whatever it wants to. So, it is not required to follow through on what most people believed the whole contest was about. Today NASA said it would make its final decision in a couple of weeks.
Oh, speaking of Colbert. WHYY’s SkyTalk Co-Host Derrick Pitts, will be on The Colbert Report tonight at 11:30pm to talk about the International Year of Astronomy and the space station (module) naming contest. Pitts is also chief astronomy at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
It’s disappointing to see one of our elected officials so preoccupied with the name of a space module. Congressman Fattah says that the name has to, “make sense to the American people.” Here’s what would make sense: leaving NASA to do its job while trying to secure funding to enrich the field of science education in Philadelphia. Our city has only two premiere science museums, and our city schools do not enjoy stellar grades in science. In a few weeks most people won’t even remember NASA’s space module. Where as, a visit to a science museum for a child can be a memorable, life-changing experience. Science enrichment, and not petty naming games, deserves attention.
-W
http://bill84121.blogspot.com
March 31st, 2009 at 11:39 am
Not touching the political aspect but I can’t wait for the Galileo exhibit to open. I’m kind of a big astronomy geek…my bro did double major in astronomy/physics and my dad believes in its power :).
Go Derrick, Go Philly!
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
This cracked me up… There’s a moving photo of the NASA space node with musician David Ippolito painting over the name COLBERT! Funny stuff. Check it out; Google…
thatguitarman