Colbert Salutes NASA, Space Shuttle Discovery

Aug. 25, 2009— -- As the NASA shuttle Discovery prepared to blast off into space Monday night, comedian Stephen Colbert delivered a message saluting -- and slightly satirizing -- the country's space agency.

Although foul weather delayed the shuttle launch from this morning to Wednesday morning, when it departs Kennedy Space Center, Fla., for the International Space Station, Discovery will carry seven astronauts and thousands of pounds of equipment, including a treadmill bearing the name of the late-night comedian.

When NASA launched an online contest earlier this year to name a new node of the space station, Colbert rallied fans of his Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report," to write in his name. Although Colbert won the most votes in the contest, NASA chose the name Tranquility instead, in a nod to where Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the Sea of Tranquility.

As a consolation prize, NASA said it would name the new treadmill the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, for short.

Colbert was invited to the shuttle's launch and although he couldn't attend, he delivered a message Monday night on NASA TV.

"I just want to congratulate you on a great year. Your dramatic pictures from Cassini, finding water on Mars, and your dramatic discovery of a new administration that believes in science," he said. "Though I urge you to never give up on President Bush's bold challenge: Before this decade is out we must launch a probe to find out if there's oil in heaven."

And then he cut to the chase.

"It's been a great year for me too. I, of course, was the winner of your online node naming competition. Despite my coming in first place in the popular vote, you named the node Tranquility," he said. "Yeah, that'll scare the aliens. They're not going to mess with Earth now. We might get all relaxed at them."

But his wasn't a message of bitterness.

"I was still honored to receive the traditional NASA consolation prize – a space treadmill. I couldn't be prouder that my treadmill will soon be installed on the International Space Station to help finally slim down all those chubby astronauts," he deadpanned. "Let's face it, being weightless is mostly just a desperate bid to get away from that bathroom scale every morning."