Names in space

One would think the most daunting challenges facing the 16 nations building the International Space Station would be in the realm of technology and engineering. Synchronizing the ultrasonic cyclotrons. Fitting tab A precisely into slot B. Ensuring adequate stores of Tang.

One would be wrong. The biggest hurdle isn’t building ISS or putting it in orbit and keeping it there. It’s deciding what to call the blasted thing. Getting 16 nations to agree on an appropriately inspiring and uplifting name is proving to be about as easy as getting 16 teen-agers to agree on pizza toppings.

When ISS first hit the drawing board more than a decade ago, President Ronald Reagan dubbed it Freedom. Since then, some of the partners have made it clear they view Freedom as the nomenclatural equivalent of a thumb in the eye. The United States also has a long tradition of naming its spacecraft after famous explorers, but the fact that the best unused explorer is DeSoto suggests that is a vein thoroughly mined.

Besides, Japan, another major player in this, has a strong cultural objection to naming inanimate objects after persons, especially when those persons are explorers of the dead, white European variety. Japan says it prefers to name its technological achievements after high-minded spiritual concepts. Like Camry.

The Russians oppose anything that intimates ISS is a first, such as Alpha, since they’ve been building space stations (and darned crummy ones at that) since the early 1970s. Peace is English for Mir, so that’s taken and will remain so as long as the duck tape holds out.

And so on. Sixteen nations all have a general ideas of what they want and very specific ideas of that up with which they will not put.

The way around this impasse (now there’s a fitting monicker) may come from this seemingly unrelated news item: Cranberry Township, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, recently entered into a five-year deal with Coca Cola in which this misguided municipality, upon receipt of $33,000, decrees that vendors providing refreshments at events held on town property may serve only Coke. It’s the Real Thing or nothing at all.

Given that ISS already is several googolplexes over budget, corporate sponsorship could provide needed capital, as well as a focus group-tested name and a catchy slogan. Imagine the possibilities. McSpace — billions and billions of galaxies observed. Microsoft Explorer may soon be up for grabs if the Justice Department has its way. Where do you want to go this eon?

Better yet, partner up with the most powerful economic engine of the day, team with the unstoppable fiscal force that makes the run-of-the-mill Juggernaut seem weak and irresolute. Titanic II — has a nice ring to it.