re no re space marketing would be wonderfull in article t pkc ovf almaak usc edu ajayshah almaak usc edu ajay shah writes if this idea goes through it s the thin end of the wedge soon companies will be doing larger and more permanant billboards in the sky i wouldn t want a world a few decades from now when the sky looks like las vegas that would really make me sad think for a moment about the technology required to do that by the time they could make the earth s sky look like las vegas the people could afford to go backpacking on the moon round trip costs for kg to the moon would be about the same as kg in a low earth advertising orbit very roughly the same cost as a smallish billboard therefore if such ads were to become common place that would have to be a very low price the night sky on a lunar backpacking trip would still be very pristine there s always been a problem of having to get away from civilization before you can really find natural scenery years ago this usually didn t take a trip of over miles today most people would have to go miles or more if we ever get to the point where we have billboards on orbit that essentially means that no place on earth is still wild while that may or may not be a good thing the orbital billboards aren t the problem they are just a symptom of growing densely populated civilization banning such ads will not save your view of the night sky because by the time such ads could become widespread you will probably have trouble finding a place without street lights where you can see the stars coca cola company will want to paint the moon red and white well if not this moon then a moon of jupiter an ad on a moon of jupiter would be rather pointless since you need a telescope to see them however i d love to see them get all the publicity they could from underwritting the coca cola io orbital mapping probe microscum will want to name a galaxy microscum galaxy they already can to some extent the iau allows names derived from sponsors or patrons of scientific research if microscum donates money to a university astronomy program one of the galactic astronomers could easily get a newly discovered galaxy named after them frank crary cu boulder
