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Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
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NASA looks to jazz up space station missions
Source: Agencies |
August 25, 2009, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN space shuttle Discovery flies to the international space station this time, it will deliver a new treadmill named for a TV comedian and pick up a Buzz Lightyear toy.
In another month, a wealthy circus performer will rocket to the space station. Add that to all the Twittering astronauts and NASA suddenly has a fresh, hip look that is attracting audiences that may have ignored the space program in the past.
"More normal folks," the chief of NASA's space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, says of NASA's newer audience. Gerstenmaier admits he's a rather humdrum engineer.
Intentional or not, the stars finally seem aligned for NASA in the pop culture department.
"It doesn't do us any good for us just to go up there and quietly do our missions if nobody knows what you're doing up there," Discovery's commander, Rick Sturckow, said in a recent interview.
Discovery and its crew of seven are scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral, in the US states of Florida, today, carrying about 7,711 kilograms 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 crew mates agree lighthearted touches like the treadmill named after Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, the Buzz Lightyear toy that's spent more than one 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.
NASA came up with the moniker after Colbert campaigned earlier this year to have a future space station chamber named after himself. He won the online poll for naming rights to the room, but NASA went with Tranquility, as in "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed."
The treadmill was the consolation prize.
In another month, a wealthy circus performer will rocket to the space station. Add that to all the Twittering astronauts and NASA suddenly has a fresh, hip look that is attracting audiences that may have ignored the space program in the past.
"More normal folks," the chief of NASA's space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, says of NASA's newer audience. Gerstenmaier admits he's a rather humdrum engineer.
Intentional or not, the stars finally seem aligned for NASA in the pop culture department.
"It doesn't do us any good for us just to go up there and quietly do our missions if nobody knows what you're doing up there," Discovery's commander, Rick Sturckow, said in a recent interview.
Discovery and its crew of seven are scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral, in the US states of Florida, today, carrying about 7,711 kilograms 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 crew mates agree lighthearted touches like the treadmill named after Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, the Buzz Lightyear toy that's spent more than one 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.
NASA came up with the moniker after Colbert campaigned earlier this year to have a future space station chamber named after himself. He won the online poll for naming rights to the room, but NASA went with Tranquility, as in "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed."
The treadmill was the consolation prize.
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