Two developments have brought these type of activities back to the forefront in 1993.  First, in February, the Russians deployed a 20-m reflector from a Progress vehicle after it had departed from the Mir Space Station.  While this "Banner" reflector was blank, NPO Energia was very active in reporting that future  Banner reflectors will be available to advertisers, who could use a space- based video of their logo or ad printed on the Banner in a TV commercial, as filmed from the Mir.    The second development, has been that Space Marketing Inc, the same company responsible for merchandising space on the Conestoga booster and COMET spacecraft, is now pushing the "Environmental Billboard".  As laid out by SMI Chief Engineer Dr Ron Humble of the University of Colorado Space Laboratory and Preston Carter of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the "Environmental Billboard" is a large inflatable outer support structure of up to 804x1609 meters.  Advertising is carried by a mylar reflective area, deployed by the inflatable 'frame'.    To help sell the concept, the spacecraft responsible for maintaining the billboard on orbit will carry "ozone reading sensors" to "continuously monitor the condition of the Earth's delicate protective ozone layer," according to Mike Lawson, head of SMI. Furthermore, the inflatable billboard has reached its minimum exposure of 30 days it will be released to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. According to IMI, "as the biodegradable material burns, it will release ozone-building components that will literally replenish the ozone layer." The remaining spacecraft will monitor the atmosphere for another year before it, too, re-enters and burns up and "adds to the ozone supply."    This would not be a cheap advertisement, costing at least several millions of dollars (exact costs were not available).  But SMI estimates that market exposure would be 3-5X that of the people who watched the SuperBowl, where a 30-second advertising 'unit' cost $600,000.  Since SMI is located in Atlanta, Georgia, it is being promoted as being available in time for the opening of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.    But back to Brian's questions: >And does anyone have any more details other than what was in the WN >news blip?  How serious is this project?  Is this just in the "wild >idea" stage or does it have real funding?        See above. As for serious -- if they can get $15-20 M or so (my estimate of $5-10 for development costs and a flight unit, plus $10-15 M for a launch), then it's probably real.  They are claiming to tailor the orbit to overfly specific locations at specific times for optimum advertising impact so they probably can't piggy back upon someone else's planned launch and will have to buy a dedicated launch.  That's a $10-15 M cost they need to raise, right there.     And there will probably be some legal challenges to this as well.  Note there is one potential legal challenge to SMI on the use of launch vehicle advertising already.  While I don't think the legal challenges would win out (and yes, I am an amateur astronomer, and no, I don't really like the idea of this additional light pollution, but I know of no prohibition of it...),  the legal challenges and court fights would probably remove any positive aspects of the advertising.  I can imagine several ways to make the advertisers look like louts for doing this -- which would change positive market exposure to negative market exposure, and negate the space advertising advantage.  (Would you spend $15 M to look like an idiot?)    (And light pollution might not be too bad -- if it's in a low enough orbit, and it relies upon reflected light only, it would only be visible for a short time just after local dusk and before dawn.  For maximum market exposure, you want to have it visible just after dusk --minimizing impact on astronomy, since that's the time of worse seeing due to day/night thermal turbulence.  It might still be a problem, but perhaps there are ways to mitigate this...)     As for having real funding -- none that I can identify.  There were about 60 expressions of interest made on the Conestoga advertising opportunity, but that included curious folks and was for only a $500,000 commitment.  I haven't heard of any serious funding for this, but I'm sure they are shopping the venture around looking for some money in order to flesh out the concept some more.  But I am confident there are no firm or paying customers at this time.       And if anybody wants to cross-post this to sci.astro, please be my guest.  I don't have posting privileges to that area (or at least I don't THINK I do...).  -------------------------------------------------------------------  Wales Larrison                            Space Technology Investor