I don’t think many (especially me) are qualified to know what military pilots should or should not do when, in an emergency, their superiors are giving orders that conflict with their training and gut feelings. Having said that, and having actually gone through ground school, I know that civilian pilots have the concept that the pilot is the ultimate authority in an emergency situation repeatedly drilled into them. I suspect the same is true for the military. But this guy was green* and he was in an aircraft of questionable airworthiness. I give him a pass.

NASA held an online naming contest for the last piece of the International Space Station that will be delivered by shuttle in the near future. They obviously wanted “Serenity,” which segues nicely from “Unity” and “Harmony,” the other USA-built nodes that are already in place. But, to the eggheads in Houstons’ mild regret I’m sure, they allowed write-ins on the voting page. Xenu, the top secret galactic overlord of Scientology, was winning the voting contest until Stephen Colbert anounced on his show that his surname would make a better node moniker (and, for that matter, a better galactic overlord). Since then, NASA has closed the voting and “Colbert” was the overwelming favorite. I’ll go on record as hoping NASA sticks with the will of the people on this one, but I’ll list the factors for consideration.

• It is admittedly risky to name a space station node after a living celebrity. While Colbert’s upstanding faith-centered family-man status is well known, he’s not afraid of dropping the occasional 4-letter word on prime-time television and you never really know who is going to be the next rifle-wielding water tower climber.
• NASA still has image stereotypes to battle, and naming a station node after a comedian would be a very positive step towards encouraging a hip new aura around publicly funded space exploration.
• The ISS won’t be there forever. And if Colbert really embarasses himself before its shelf life expires, they can always either re-christen the node or in a brave and aggressive public statement against the unspecified future moral infraction that the comedian commits NASA can push the eject button and let the node tumble into the atmosphere. Or they can deliver Colbert to his namesake node for good.
• There is no such thing as bad publicity.
• Flaunting the voters’ choice will take a lot of meaning out of any future polls. NASA will lose that marketing avenue if they go with Serenity at this point.