TVSquad

Chalk up another win for the Colbert Nation. Maybe, or not. Whatever.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams will appear on tonight's Colbert Report to announce the winning name that will go on the International Space Station's module.

For those of you who aren't in the know and therefore aren't cool, here's the skinny. NASA held an online vote to field suggestions on names for a new module on the space station. Colbert rallied his legion of ballot stuffing zombies to nominate his name and the name "Colbert" eventually garnered the most votes.

An open letter to the folks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

You have done some mighty fine things over the years. You've put a man not just in space, but on the moon. You've invented devices that have reached the farthest corners of space (some haven't made it back, but that's another letter). You invented Tang.

Technically, that's about it, at least if you don't count the hilarious, million dollar mistakes that have provided wonks like me with hours of depressing entertainment. But that leads me to my point.

This news is a big damn deal to die hard fans of Firefly and Serenity (we call 'em 'Browncoats'). Apparently there are some Browncoats at NASA and they have managed to get DVDs of Joss Whedon's television show and movie up to the International Space Station. Astronaut Steven R. Swanson is the fan who just returned from the ISS after delivering the DVDs (oh yeah, and other important astronaut/survival supplies).

There's a fan page that blogs about it called Breaking Atmo. The most recent posts has all sorts of photos of Firefly and Serenity DVDs floating in space. One of the blog posts says that "Swanny" got the other astronauts addicted to Firefly while they were all in quarantine for five hours before the shuttle Atlantis launched earlier this month.

I've also heard that there are a number of astronauts at NASA who are addicted to Battlestar Galactica. Can you blame them?!?

[Via Pop Candy]