UPDATE: Now That's Just Wrong

NASA needs a name for a piece of the International Space Station, and they've decided to put it to a vote. The choices they offered are Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity, and Venture. Now, anyone who knows me knows what I voted for (and they'll let you vote once a day, so I keep going back). Apparently there's a lot of people who agree with me too, because Serenity was up to 89% of the votes.

Until Stephen Colbert decided to butt in. Yeah, Colbert. The Comedy Central guy. (I'll warn you, the site makes the unpardonable sin of making the video play immediately.) This is just sick and wrong. I don't watch much tv, so I apparently don't even know how to pronounce the guy's name, but I still highly doubt that he has much of anything to do with space, and I'd be very surprised if he's done anything worthy of getting even a small rock named after him, let alone a space station. He's a comedian. And he seems to think we should vote for him. Uh, no. Sorry.

But he's winning. (The numbers on the site don't reflect the suggestions.)

Gratefully, NASA doesn't have to listen. From their rules:

NASA will take into consideration the results of the voting. However, the results are not binding on NASA and NASA reserves the right to ultimately select a name in accordance with the best interests of the agency, its needs, and other considerations. Such name may not necessarily be one which is on the list of voted-on candidate names. NASA’s decision shall be deemed final.

So basically, we need two things. We need people who actually care what the thing might be called to vote, and we need to pray that NASA isn't so stupid as to take a suggestion like this seriously.

Go vote. And go back tomorrow and vote too.

UPDATE: While Colbert didn't win, NASA didn't take it's own poll very seriously anyway. It has been named Tranquility.