NASA update: Astronauts start running on COLBERT today!

Greetings, Zoners! I’ve been monitoring the progress on the C.O.L.B.E.R.T.’s assembly and testing, and the astronauts on the space station are getting very close to putting the treadmill to good use. Yesterday’s ISS status report included the news that the C.O.L.B.E.R.T. was activated and tested for the first time, and this great article from SPACE.com (Astronauts Build Stephen Colbert’s Space Treadmill) explains exactly where they are in the process. (It also includes this amusing quote from astronaut Nicole Stott: “We’re actually really looking forward to getting to run all over COLBERT.” Hah!) Earlier this morning, NASA posted a very interesting update on Twitter about the C.O.L.B.E.R.T., so I thought I’d share it with you here.

Woo hoo! We should finally get a chance to see Stephen’s namesake space treadmill in action! We may not get to see it live on NASA TV, since there will probably be a lot of coverage of today’s “bombing” of the moon. But once the video becomes available I’ll post it here, along with any further updates. I won’t be able to watch at 5:30 today since I’ll be at work, so if any of you Zoners with access to NASA TV checks in and sees that they’re showing it live, please let us know in the comments!

• Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – February 6, 2010
• Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – October 14, 2009
• NASA update: COLBERT now fully operational
• COLBERT update: How to assemble a space treadmill