Node 3's name is... TRANQUILITY

Following one of the most hyped name-the-spacecraft contests sponsored by NASA since the Constitution/ Enterprise name switch in 1976, the name TRANQUILITY won out over the even bigger vote winner COLBERT, as former space station astronaut Suni Williams made the announcement tonight on the Comedy Central network.

The much watched Colbert Report show had host Stephen Colbert and Williams make the announcement at 11:47 pm EDT tonight. TRANQUILITY won out for its significance of the upcoming 40th anniversary of the first moon landing upon the Sea of Tranquility.

TRANQUILITY is a multi-window module which will support several windows, giving astronauts and cosmonauts both a 360-degree view of space. The new Node will launch no earlier than February 2010 aboard the Endeavour STS-130 mission.

Instead, NASA has named their new space station treadmill COLBERT or Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. The new treadmill will launch in August, and later will be moved to the new Node once it arrives several months later. There station crew members can run in place for with an excellent view of the earth and space around them.

"We don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception," Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations stated today. "We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on."

A Space Station Module named "Colbert"

From the spacelaunchnews.com AP newswire:

WASHINGTON – NASA's online contest to name a new room at the international space station went awry. Comedian Stephen Colbert won.

The name "Colbert" beat out NASA's four suggested options in the space agency's effort to have the public help name the addition. The new room will be launched later this year.

NASA's mistake was allowing write-ins. Colbert urged viewers of his Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report" to write in his name. And they complied, with 230,539 votes. That clobbered Serenity, one of the NASA choices, by more than 40,000 votes. Nearly 1.2 million votes were cast by the time the contest ended Friday.
NASA reserves the right to choose an appropriate name. Agency spokesman John Yembrick said NASA will decide in April, but will give top vote-getters "the most consideration."