Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 16, 1993 TAG: 9304160110
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: KEAY DAVIDSON SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
SCIENTISTS JOIN OUTCRY AGAINST ADS IN SPACE
A private company's plan to launch a mile-long billboard into space has triggered furious reaction from scientists and environmentalists angered at the thought of beer ads circling rudely in the night skies.One day after announcement of the project, environmentalists and astronomers were decrying the "abomination in space." But the developer, Space Marketing Inc. of Roswell, Ga., sees potential for profit in outer space.
"It's very feasible," Space Marketing CEO Mike Lawson said. "We could actually fly [a corporate logo such as McDonalds'] `Golden Arches' in space" and it might appear as large as the full moon.
Space Marketing hopes to launch the first space billboard in 1996.
The orbital advertising sign is being produced in collaboration with engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University of Colorado.
"It's horrifying," said Robert Park, spokesman for the American Physical Society, the nation's leading physics organization. "The thought that one would not be able to look at a starlit sky at night without having this thing intrude upon you is so obscene I think humanity has to rise up and stop this immediately.
"I hope this is a bad dream and it'll never come back. If NASA meant this when it said there'd be spinoffs from the space program, I think we should end the space program right now."
Yet the city of Atlanta is seriously investigating the idea as a promotional scheme for the 1996 Olympics there. And Lawson said five major companies have approached Space Marketing about the possibility of renting space for their logos aboard the billboard.
He said sponsorship for the project, which also would monitor Earth's environment, would cost $20 million to $30 million.
One space-billboard defender says it's a chance for the United States to take the lead in a new mode of advertising: "Something like this is inevitable; if we don't do it, somebody else will," said University of Colorado engineering Professor Ronald Humble, chief engineer for the billboard design.
Leading environmental organizations oppose the proposal.
"It would be difficult to imagine spending several days to hike down into the Grand Canyon and looking up into the sky and seeing [an advertisement] flying by. How would you explain that to your children?" asked Sierra Club spokeswoman Teresa Schilling.
Said Kenny Bruno, a toxic-waste researcher for the New York office of Greenpeace: "This is another step in the `end of nature.' No matter where you go, you can't escape reminders of industrialized society or the marketplace, be it as banal as an ad for spark plugs or hamburgers."
Livermore engineer Preston Carter is designing scientific instruments that would fly aboard the billboard. He scoffs at astronomers' complaints that it would obscure their view: "That's ludicrous. We're talking about a very small part of the sky for a very brief moment."
In fact, astronomers say, such a huge object could ruin nighttime observations because modern telescopes use hypersensitive electronic detectors to see extremely faint objects. The billboard's glow could hopelessly wash out faint celestial objects.
"If it looked as bright as the full moon, that would be terrible, just terrible," said Joseph Miller, director of Lick Observatory near San Jose, Calif.
NASA didn't return calls for comment.
The billboard would be made of a thin, lightweight plastic called mylar and covered with a reflective substance in the shape of a corporate sponsor's logo. It would inflate like a balloon in orbit and fall back to Earth after a month or so.