The ISS, captured by an astronaut aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor on February 10, 2010. The new committee of the NASA Advisory Board examines the growing commercial demand for the orbital laboratory and other areas of space agency activity.
Those astronauts on the boxes with flakes and chips, decorated with labels, rovers and corporate logos on ships ... Now the rules leave all these ideas only at the level of fantasy, but in the near future the situation can change dramatically. NASA is creating a committee that will investigate commercial expansion and cooperation in near-earth orbit and beyond.
We are talking about the ability to compensate for some of the costs of the NASA mission by selling the rights to the naming of space ships and rockets. There is already an increased demand for such a proposal, but the committee is to study the issue as widely as possible. He will be headed by lawyer Mike Gold. It was he who proposed to give astronauts more advertising freedom, that is, to shoot videos on board the ISS and approve certain types of products. He believes that such indulgences will attract huge additional funds for the implementation of space missions and increase the interest of the media. In addition, it will be possible to recruit more space reconnaissance aircraft and inspire the younger generation to conquer space.
Gold stresses that an increase in business is an inevitable process because the United States risks losing to foreign competitors. That is, he believes that sooner or later the advertisement will break through. That’s just left to see which country will have time to do it first.
Commercialization of the low-earth orbit is already underway. For example, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman launch robotic cargo deliveries to the orbital station. SpaceX and Boeing also plan to deliver NASA astronauts to the ISS and back on a regular basis. Of course, not everyone may like astronauts dressed in posters, like NASCAR drivers, but Gold believes that such activities will benefit the development of the space industry.
