Billboards in space
If Russian company StartRocket has their way, there will soon be no escaping ads. They plan to display them in the sky, from satellites. They hope to have them up and running by 2021.
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Arthur C. Clarke came up with this idea in 1958 as part of his "Venture to the Moon" series of short stories for the Evening Standard. They were collected in the book "The Other Side of the Sky". In the story "Watch this space" He had the first expedition to the moon (which was multi-national and multi-vehicular) run an "experiment" where they released a giant cloud of sodium. When the cloud hits the sun's rays, it starts to glow in the shape of a well-known American soft drink script as part of "The greatest advertising scoop in history".
Posted by mjbird on 02/09/19 at 06:26 AM
I hope to step out the door on a clear night and see a bright advertisement in the night sky that reads: "Eat at Joe's"
I had poster above my bed showing a bombed out restaurant. The sign above what used to be the front window and entrance read "Eat at Joe's".
agent j
I had poster above my bed showing a bombed out restaurant. The sign above what used to be the front window and entrance read "Eat at Joe's".
agent j
Posted by agent j on 02/09/19 at 09:52 AM
Maybe this will be fun. Amateur rocket enthusiasts will have a great target. Parimutuel betting could be added.
Posted by Virtual on 02/09/19 at 11:46 AM
I had the specs for a message board on the moon which could be easily read from Earth ('dot' size for 5x8 matrix, necessary albedo, etc.) (someone else figured it out, I just copied it).
Controlling a scrolling message across the face of the moon is in my list of the "it can be done, but no matter how rich you are, you'll never be able to afford it" things which haunt my dreams.
Controlling a scrolling message across the face of the moon is in my list of the "it can be done, but no matter how rich you are, you'll never be able to afford it" things which haunt my dreams.
Posted by Phideaux on 02/09/19 at 01:50 PM
There's Asimov's 1958 story "Buy Jupiter" that takes this a step further with humorous results.
Posted by KDP on 02/09/19 at 09:13 PM
Wait till hackers get a hold of this and use it to display someone’s dick pics...
Posted by Brian on 02/09/19 at 09:58 PM
If you were going to hack it, why not lock it into a countdown, with the zero some months out. The number of people who'd freak would be astronomical.
Posted by Phideaux on 02/10/19 at 02:24 AM
The very reason governments exist is to prevent this. If this happens we have failed as a species.
Posted by Floormaster Squeeze on 02/11/19 at 10:21 AM
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Category: Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy | Advertising | Billboards