Posted 8/24/2009 06:47:00 PM by Douglas

Shuttle launch tonight, and it sounds like they're trying to get some good PR out of this one:

When Discovery flies to the international space station this week, it will deliver a new treadmill named for a TV comedian and pick up a Buzz Lightyear toy.

Discovery and its crew of seven are scheduled to blast off early Tuesday, carrying about 17,000 pounds of supplies and equipment to the space station. It is the second station visit in as many months for NASA, making it harder to drum up excitement.

Sturckow and his crewmates agree lighthearted touches — like the treadmill named after Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, the Buzz Lightyear toy that's spent more than a year at the space station and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte's trip — are good ways to publicize the more workaday events unfolding in orbit.

The treadmill, for the record, is officially known as the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, which spells COLBERT.

It's still pretty lame that NASA had the contest to name the new module, then went ahead with the lame-ass name they were going to give it.