With the insane amount of ads we stumble upon everyday and with the constant need of innovation in the advertising field, you can’t help yourself but wonder: will we be able to see space advertising someday?
Well, we have the answer and it’s a no. At least not in a conventional way. Here’s why.
In 1993, a company called “Space advertising inc.” attempted to launch a giant billboard into low earth orbit. The logic behind it was simple. As Sen. James M. Jeffords exlpained: (the article continues after the ad)
If brands are willing to pay $1.7 million for half a minute of ad time during the Super Bowl, one can only imagine how much they might be willing to pay for an ad seen by half of the Earth’s population.
According to Space Marketing, the billboard would have been half-mile by quarter-mile sheet of Mylar, a strong, Space Age plastic. Once the billboard would have been ejected from its rocker, the reflective sheet would unfurl and then pulled by a framework of inflating Mylar tubes. From Earth, 150 miles away, the billboard would have appeared about half the size of the full moon.
Since it started becoming a controversial issue and in an effort to gain public opinion, Space Advertising renamed the project as the “environmental billboard,” and pointed out that it will be fitted with ozone-measuring sensors that will continue to function long after the advertisement has disintegrated.
Thankfully, the project was cancelled and soon after a bill was introduced that banned any further space advertising.
“Putting billboards in space is a bad idea” Jeffords said. “Companies can support space and environmental research and tell us about it through newspapers, TV and radio; they don’t need to ruin our sunsets.”
If you like what you read, then you will definitely love this one: How Loud Would The Sun Be If There Was Air In Space?
Photos: Avocarrot
Photoshop: I’m A Useless Info Junkie
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