As NASA engineers prepare the gamma-ray observatory GLAST for launch in mid-2008, the agency has put out a call for help from the public: Please think of a better name for the high-tech space telescope. “Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope” aptly describes the satellite’s function, but doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.
“We’re looking for name suggestions that will capture the excitement of GLAST’s mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy,” according to S. Alan Stern, a NASA science administrator and Astronomy advisory board member, who was quoted in a NASA press release.
The naming of space stuff has a long and etymologically rich history. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics with the Chandra X-Ray Telescope, has created an exhaustive list of spacecraft, satellite, and space-hardware names.
GLAST KEPT AT BAY. In a Florida payload processing facility in March, General Dynamics technicians watch as GLAST is moved toward a work stand for checks on its scientific instruments. NASA/KIM SHIFLETT
It’s pretty interesting — at least until your eyes start to glaze over. The list includes HUNDREDS of entries from many countries. Check out the list here. And if you have any comments or additions, McDowell encourages you to contact him at jcm@cfa.harvard.edu or just visit his web page.
Space names come in a few popular flavors enjoyed by the vast majority of space-stuff namers — think of them as the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry of aerospace labeling.
Naturally, vanilla corresponds to what I facetiously term “famous dead white guys.” (No offense, I am all of the above — except the dead part, at least not until a the relative of a famous dead white guy reads this blog, tracks me down, and shoots me like a varmint.) Just take a gander at my overwhelming whiteness.
Early in McDowell’s list is the Amos communications satellite. Amos, nice. Sounds like the kind of satellite you’d like to go out for a beer with. The Israelis named it after the prophet Amos of Tekoa (circa 750
B.C.). The Italians stayed in the religious vein with the San Marco atmospheric science satellite, named after the religious writer San Marco Yohanan Marcus (circa 30
A.D.). In my life so far, the grandaddy of all space hardware named after my white-guy brothers is certainly the Hubble Space Telescope.
Edwin Hubble (1889–1953), an American astronomer, discovered the expanding universe. I enjoy the fact that I can e-mail mind-blowing images from Hubble to my friends — who generally care not one iota about science — but still get to hear them say, “Holy ****!”
And thanks, too, from the staff of Astronomy — mostly a bunch of white guys, I should add — who rely deeply on Hubble’s big, old, clunky, but still-functioning eye in the sky for our “WOW!” photographic story openers.
NASA is in the habit of first choosing a boring, utilitarian name for its space hardware and, later, coming up with a more cuddly or humanistic moniker. It’s a bit like the process of naming drugs: You spend years testing traztuzumab (generic name) on women with *** cancer and, when you receive FDA marketing approval, rename it Herceptin (brand name).
So, too, did the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) morph into the Spitzer Space Telescope, named after the celebrated astronomer Lyman Spitzer, Jr. (1914–1997). The Spitzer scope, coincidentally, received its name in a public competition started shortly after the instrument’s launch on Monday, August 25, 2003, at 1:35:39 (EDT).
Anyway, I think we should have some fun and inaugurate a Famous Dead White Guy contest for naming GLAST. How about “Compton Gamma Interstellar Find-stuff-out-there”?
Not only does the acronym, CGIF, reflect my true feelings today — Credit God It’s Friday! — but the commemorates a famous dead white guy, Arthur Holly Compton (1892–1962).
Compton described the interaction in which “an incident gamma photon loses enough energy to an atomic electron to cause its ejection, with the remainder of the original photon's energy being emitted as a new, lower energy gamma photon with an emission direction different from that of the incident gamma photon.” I so profoundly wish I knew what that means, but it sure sounds important.
Darn! This famous dead white guy was taken in 1991 by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, GLAST’s predecessor. So many famous dead white guys, so many telescopes ...
OK, to be serious for a microsecond, the basic rules of the NASA naming competition are as follows, straight from NASA:
Suggestions for the mission's new name can be an acronym, but it is not a requirement. Any suggestions for naming the telescope after a scientist may only include names of deceased scientists whose names are not already used for other NASA missions. All suggestions will be considered. The period for accepting names closes on March 31, 2008. Participants must include a statement of 25 words or less about why their suggestion would be a strong name for the mission. Multiple suggestions are encouraged. Click here to submit a suggestion for the mission name.
Good luck! If your name is chosen, you won’t make it to the International Space Station. You won’t even go out for a hamburger with the technician who polishes GLAST’s solar panels until launch time. But you might just get a mention in Wikipedia.