Colbert Treads Where No Comic Has Before

April 15, 2009— -- The name Stephen Colbert will blast off into the final frontier, although not exactly in the way the comedian had hoped.

After much anticipation, NASA said Tuesday it would not name the new room in the international space station after Colbert, even though he won the most votes in an online write-in contest.

Instead, a treadmill will carry the Colbert name into space.

As for the new space station room (node 3), NASA has chosen the name Tranquility, which it says was one of the Top 10 vote-getters. The new name is a nod to where Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the Sea of Tranquility.

Astronaut Sunita Williams joined the comedian to make the announcement Tuesday on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."

When she revealed that Colbert had lost his latest naming campaign, the audience let out a galactic "boo!"

But when she assured him that his name would still be in space, he responded in his signature style.

"I think [the] treadmill's better than a node. You know why? Because the node is just a box for the treadmill," he said. "Nobody says, 'Hey, my mom bought me a Nike box.' They want the shoes that are inside."

Williams said the treadmill will be named the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, for short. It is expected to launch in August and a special patch will be created to show off the acronym.

NASA has invited Colbert to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to test out a version of the treadmill.

Earlier, NASA had launched an online contest inviting the public to write-in and vote on the name of the next module to go into space.

They never expected Colbert to put viewers of his show up to going online and voting to name the next node. (The comedian has already succeeded in getting a bridge, an ice cream flavor, a spider and other miscellany named for him.)

His name blew the other candidates (including NASA's own Serenity, Legacy, Earthrise and Venture) out of the water. His name won 230,000 votes. The second most popular option, Serenity, earned 190,000 votes.