The two I heard (obviously these are jokes, people) are the Space Shuttle Disaster and the Firebolt.
If you must have a cool-sounding noun I’d suggest “Alacrity.” Look it up.
But I can’t believe we’re this far into the thread and nobody’s suggested just going with great scientists and astronomers:
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Galileo
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Copernicus
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Newton
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Tycho Brahe
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Einstein
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Rutherford
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Franklin
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Watt
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Edison
What’s wrong with scientists’ names?
Grissom wouldn’t be bad (in fact, I think Gus would be proud), but it doesn’t fit the stated naming convention, which is “significant historic sailing ships used for exploration.”
Nautilus and Calypso are, in my opinion, brilliant choices.
If your going to go for a polar exploration vessel, one of the greatest was Nansen’s and subsequently Amundsen’s ship, Fram. Unfortunately, in keeping with the Norwegians’ efficient and no fuss approach to polar exploration, it doesn’t sound very heroic or inspiring.
My vote would be for a joint sponsorship from Ford and the publishers of a jazzmag - you could call it the Escort or Fiesta.
I know what you meant, but my mind read that as “Ericsson” which conjured up scary images of the future:
I give you the worst possibly named Orbiter fleet:
3COM
Nextel
Enron
Microsoft
and of course…
Taco Bell
“Pespi you are clear for landing…”
Seriously, I say wait until the Cosmo/Astronauts are dead to start using their names. I like the Freedom/Liberty/etc idea.
Or here’s one fanboy’s dream:
Verne, Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Roddenberry?
Never heard of the gentleman. I just like the word.
BTW no reason a space shuttle should not be named after a currently-serving vessel of another type that shares a “historic exploratory vessel” name. Or even a currently afloat but decommissioned vessel (e.g. Calypso) .
OTOH, new types of reusable crew-carrying spacecraft (a SSTO, a TSTSO, an OSP, or a shuttle significantly different from the Enterprise-class) could have entirely different class-naming conventions. For instance Chandeleur’s Reliance-class; the series of major astronomers/cosmologists; the Apollo callsigns.
Please, though, no letting Congress condition funding on naming one of them after some living retired politician.
John Glenn perhaps being an exception.
Nah, that’s what an escape capsule should be called.
Please – not until Majel dies. She’s already insufferable as it is.
There are some fantastic ideas put forth in this thread. My favorite candidates culled from the responses are:[ul]
[li]Eagle[/li][li]Constitution[/li][li]Endurance[/li][li]Phoenix[/li][li]Dauntless[/li][li]Falcon[/li][li]Perseverence[/li][li]Vanguard[/li][li]Independence[/li][/ul]
Honorable mentions go to:[ul]
[li]Bob[/li][li]Elvis[/li][li]Cromulent[/li][li]The Bed Bath and Beyond[/li][/ul]
I have no doubt that the good folks at NASA are regular readers here at the SDMB, and undoubtedly, one of you has set in motion their next craft naming scheme.
You must be in or were in to know what class those were, right?
The names I’d love to hear crackling over the Houston radio are:
Endurance (for Shackleton, who is all the rage these days)
Beagle (screw the silliness, it was Darwin !)
Liberty (A class of cheap but vital WWII ships, also one of our remaining NYC landmarks)
Essex (Okay, so they “discovered” you should be nicer to sperm whales).
Voyager (for the round-the-world airplane)
Calypso (for Cousteau and to fill the “C” in the roster)
I just want to see the next launch of a new shuttle “… and we have liftoff … of STS-122 Space Shuttle Liberty”
I prefer Cousteau to Calypso.
New Shuttle on the Block
‘Nshuttle
BoomTown
Hal
Ol’ Sparky
Greyhound (hey, it’s sposed to be a space bus)
The Pete Rose (always a gambler)
Athena after the Greek goddess.
The Golden Hind One of Sir Francis Drake’s ships.
Prometheus the Greek god.
McShuttle (Sponsored by McDonald’s)
Kennedy after all, it was JFK who gave the space program its big push
DeForrest after DeForrest Kelly
SoJourner after the Civil Rights activist and Mars robot
Independance in honor of the Declaration of Independance
Forlorn Hope (what most of us feel about our chances of getting off this rock)
There are plans being made to send a probe beneath the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa to find ot if there is water and possibly life under the ice. I think the name Cousteau should be reserved for that.
In the movie Lifeforce (where Mathilda May runs around topless most of the time) one of the shuttles was named Churchill.
I think Cousteau is too good a name for a disposable ship.
Almost was in. Was a huge (and now somewhat moderate) maritime militaria aficionado.
I like The Cromulent and SpaceBob Shuttlepants. And Elvis is just too good to pass up.
“Elvis has left orbit.”