page_title: Treadmill with Vibration Isolation Stabilization
section_title: Naming COLBERT
hierarchical_section_title: Treadmill with Vibration Isolation Stabilization / Naming COLBERT
caption_attribution_description: English: Official patch for "COLBERT," the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, due to launch on shuttle Discovery as early as August 2009.
context_page_description: The Treadmill with Vibration Isolation Stabilization System, commonly abbreviated as TVIS, is a treadmill for use on board the International Space Station and is designed to allow astronauts to run without vibrating delicate microgravity science experiments in adjacent labs. International Space Station treadmills, not necessarily described here, have included the original treadmill, the original TVIS, the БД-2, the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, and the Treadmill 2. Some share a name, some a design, some a function, some use different vibration-suppression systems, some it is unclear how they differ.
  The name for the treadmill came about due to a naming contest that NASA held for what became the Tranquility module. Comedian and TV personality Stephen Colbert used his show The Colbert Report to encourage his viewers to write in votes to use "Colbert" during the contest. After the results of the contest were announced, NASA decided to use Colbert's name for the new treadmill in place of naming the Tranquility module after him.
context_section_description: In early 2009 NASA held an online poll to name what became the Tranquility module. On the 3 March 2009 episode of The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert instructed his viewers to suggest "Colbert" as the name for Node 3 in the online poll. On 23 March 2009, it was announced that "Colbert" had garnered the most votes, but NASA did not immediately commit to using the name.
  Congressman Chaka Fattah had pledged to use congressional power to ensure that democratic voting is honored in outer space as well as on planet Earth, in response to the possibility that NASA would overrule the voting. On the 14 April 2009 episode of The Colbert Report, astronaut Sunita Williams appeared on the show to announce that NASA decided to name the node 3 "Tranquility", the eighth most popular response in the census, and announced that they would name a new treadmill on the station after the comedian – Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT). Colbert was invited to Houston to test the treadmill, and later to Florida for its launch. The treadmill was taken to the ISS in August 2009, aboard STS-128 and was installed in the Tranquility module after the node arrived at the station in February 2010.
  NASA poked fun at itself in a humorous press release included in the STS-128 flight day 6 execute package report which claimed that Jon Stewart demanded to be honored similarly but turned down the agency's offer to name the ISS Urine Processor "Space Toilet Environmental Waste Accumulator/Recycling Thingy" (STEWART).
caption: Official patch for COLBERT
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