Could the Coke-Cola Launch System one day blast off from Kennedy Space Center, carrying a NASA Orion capsule brought to you by Uber? Will a crew soon fly to the Outback Space Station, link up to the Home Depot docking port and float into the Merck Laboratory Module to perform experiments? How about a McDonald's moon base?
If NASA chief Jim Bridenstine gets his way, all of that could be possible.
Bridenstine wants the space agency to explore the feasibility of selling naming rights for rockets and spacecraft as part of an effort to speed up the commercialization of low Earth orbit and free up money for deep space exploration. He'd also like to raise astronauts' profiles and potentially enable them to profit from endorsements, just like athletes.
“I’d like to see kids growing up instead of maybe wanting to be like a professional sports star, I’d like to see them grow up wanting to be a NASA astronaut or a NASA scientist,” Bridenstine told the NASA Advisory Council recently. “I’d like to see maybe one day NASA astronauts on the cover of a cereal box, embedded into the American culture.”
It’s not a completely new idea: Brands have been associated with spaceflight since the dawn of the Space Age, marketing everything from Tang to Corvettes to TV dinners, pens and watches.
There was talk in the 90s of big commercial sponsorship deals that went nowhere. Mike McCulley, a retired shuttle pilot and former CEO of United Space Alliance, remembers interest from Kellogg in emblazoning Tony the Tiger on the shuttle’s giant orange fuel tank. But he said such talk never moved beyond brainstorming.
Experts say a fresh look at the laws and policies that prohibit astronauts from any product endorsement deal, including limiting which commercial experiments they’re allowed to work on in orbit, could be worthwhile and generate some additional cash for the agency.
“The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert immediately poked fun at the branding concept, with a spoof of Neil Armstrong declaring, “That’s one small step for man, one comfortable leap thanks to Dr. Scholl’s insoles! Houston, I’m gellin’!”
Playing along, Bridenstine responded with a tweet asking if the “The Tonight Show” would like to brand a rocket instead.
“Jimmy Fallon, you in?” the NASA administrator wrote, showing Fallon’s image emblazoned on the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket then preparing to launch a NASA science mission from California.
To pave the way toward this final branding frontier, Bridenstine has created a new advisory committee to figure out what's possible. Led by Maxar Technologies' Mike Gold, a former executive at private space station developer Bigelow Aerospace, the committee will look at any regulatory obstacles to commercial progress in low Earth orbit. Gold's goal: to help NASA "achieve escape velocity from red tape."
Bridenstine's proposal comes at a time when billionaire-backed private space companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic dominate the buzz about spaceflight and are growing closer to flying space tourists. So far, it's unclear if the proposed branding strategy would apply to NASA-owned rockets and spacecraft, or only to missions flown by commercial companies, like SpaceX.
Within a year, NASA astronauts will begin flying to the International Space Station on NASA contracted "Commercial Crew" capsules operated by Boeing and SpaceX. The capsules will have extra seats that could be filled by private astronauts or wealthy tourists not bound by NASA's restrictions on sponsorship and endorsements.
Looking ahead, the Trump administration wants to end direct federal support for the space station in 2025, hoping commercial space companies will take it over or field new stations that promote research and commerce in low Earth orbit. NASA wants to focus on returning humans to the moon.
One question is would the branding really make a difference to NASA's finances? Future flights of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket are expected run at least $1 billion each launch. The shuttle was only a fraction of that and McCulley said corporate sponsorship then probably would have only generated "pennies in the overall scheme of things.”
Then there are questions like, where would the revenue from naming rights or an astronaut’s image on a Wheaties cereal box go? Who would decide? Who would negotiate the agreements?
“There’s a lot of opportunities for sponsorship, and I am not dismissing it outright; but, it also opens up a Pandora’s box of issues — around flight safety, around undue influence, around go/no-go decisions and the timing of flights,” said Richard Jurek, co-author of "Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program."
Liability is another concern.
In 2000, Pizza Hut paid $1 million to put its new logo on a Russian Proton rocket that launched an early space station module. The launch was a success, but what if it had gone badly? Would anyone want to accept such risks on missions carrying people?
What if a major sponsor became tainted by scandal — think Enron, whose name once graced Houston’s baseball stadium.
Then there's the potential for a commercial advertiser to influence critical judgment calls and impact safety.
Jurek wonders if sponsorships would open the door to second guessing-mission controllers or astronauts. "Are they making a decision based on money and their ability to promote their sponsor, or the true life-and-death decision they have to make at the time?" he said.
Greed and abuse are other considerations. Companies might seek an edge in contract bids by buying naming rights or doling out astronaut endorsements.
Perceptions of astronauts abusing the privilege of representing the nation in space by profiting personally are behind some of the current restrictions. Apollo 15 astronauts prompted a congressional investigation after flying to the moon and signing first-day postal covers for a German stamp dealer who promised to pay them. Congress only recently passed a law awarding Apollo and earlier astronauts ownership and the right to sell personal artifacts and mementos that NASA had tried to reclaim.
Bridenstine argues that limitations on astronauts have diminished their visibility and stature as American heroes.
Despite the potential pitfalls, advertising is seen as an inevitable and essential way for private companies to one day make money in space — a future NASA wants to accelerate.
“Brands are part of our culture here on Earth, so why shouldn’t they be a part of the culture we take away from Earth?” asked Robert Pearlman, editor of CollectSpace.com.
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