Cosmos

Will advertising in space soon become a reality?

Will advertising in space soon become a reality?
It takes approx. 3 minutes to read this article

Billboards on the streets and banners on the Internet have become such common phenomena that many of us have stopped paying attention to them. As if in response to this fading human sensibility, the concept of creating advertising in space has emerged. Is placing ads in space a pipe dream or a realistic prospect for the future?

Advertising in space – how does it work?

You may be wondering how it is possible to make advertising shine above our heads? Here we will present three innovative solutions, invented by leading space startups.

The first one consists in sending a set of satellites equipped with an ion engine and a powerful light source into the Earth’s orbit. Once the satellites are positioned in the right way, the laser would display any logo or advertisement. This idea belongs to the Russian startup Avant Space.

Its competitor, the Russian company Start Rocket, wants to send 300 small satellites equipped with sun sails into Earth’s orbit. Lined up in a row and set in motion, the satellites would reflect the sun’s rays and thus display advertising content that could be seen from the Earth’s surface.

And finally, Elon Musk’s SpaceX together with Canadian startup Geometric Energy plan to launch into space a miniature CubeSat satellite with a giant pixel screen. Banners are to be captured by the satellite on a selfie stick-like camera and broadcast via the streaming platform Twitch and the YouTube website. 

Who needs it?

The possibilities of using advertising in space seem boundless. With its help it is possible not only to advertise products of famous brands, but also to control the minds of people. A slogan deployed above the heads of billions of people will drill into minds and influence human psyche and behavior. The augmented reality technology of advertising will instantly inform the masses of people about this or that event, service or commodity. 

The Space Price of Advertising

The price for deploying advertising in space will be… cosmic. Therefore, only big corporations, very famous brands and powerful political organizations will be able to use it. And do ordinary people and small entrepreneurs need such advertising? Of course not! Its cost will certainly exceed the financial possibilities of an individual entrepreneur or a small company. Although with time the situation may change. The initiators of the space advertising path themselves say that with the spread of the new technology, its price will become more affordable. 

Advertising in space – concerns

However, the above raises some concerns: won’t space advertising sting our eyes? Space advertising will not be able to be jumped over or blocked like on a phone or computer – it will be hovering over our heads. And whether we want it or not, instead of a sky dotted with stars we will have a sky woven with advertising slogans.

Hence the ambiguous reaction of people: some see in the “star” advertising the technical progress, others express fears that soon we will lose forever the starry sky – the thing that has inspired and shaped writers, thinkers and ordinary people for centuries.

And how do you feel about the potential launch of “starry” advertising?

main photo: unsplash.com/Tengyart

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