Brian Yamauchi asks: [Regarding orbital billboards...] >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?        Well, I had been collecting data for next edition of the Commercial Space News/Space Technology Investor... To summarize:    SPACE ADVERTISING     First, advertising on space vehicles is not new -- it is very common practice to put the cooperating organization's logos on the space launch vehicle.  For example, the latest GPS launcher had the (very prominent) logos on its side of    - McDonnell Douglas (the Delta launcher)    - Rockwell International (who built the GPS satellite)    - USAF (who paid for the satellite and launch), and    - the GPS/Navstar program office    This has not been considered "paid advertising" but rather "public relations", since the restrictions have been such that only organizations involved in the launch could put their logos on the side, and there was no money exchanged for this.  [However, putting a 10' high logo on the side of the launch vehicle facing the cameras is "advertising" as much as it is "public relations", in my opinion.]  [And by the way, I note that the DC-X test vehicle has rather prominent McDonnell-Douglas and SDIO logos on the side...]    There have been several studies looking at the revenue potentials for use of space vehicles for advertising, or placing large advertising signs in orbit.  On the shuttle, for example, I know of several serious studies in the early and mid 1980's which looked at putting logos on the external tank, or on the sides of the payload bay.  These ventures would be different than "public relations", in that the logos or displays would not be restricted to the firms participating on that flight, and would involve payment of sums for the right to fly the logos in a prominent organization.  (For example, painting the ET to look like a Pepsi can, or putting a Disneyworld logo on the inside of the payload bay where the cameras would scan past it.)    ADVERTS ON LAUNCH VEHICLES    The first paid advertising was done on a Soviet launcher in about 1990, when several non-involved foreign organizations were allowed to pay to put their logos on a Proton launch.  (An Italian shoe company was one of the first advertisers, I remember.)  Similarly, Soviet cosmonauts on Mir made a paid advertisement for the last Olympic games, and have gleefully shown banners and other items from participating firms and organizations.  Mars candy bars, for example, got a plug from orbit as a sponsor of the launch of the British visiting cosmonaut to Mir.    Now US firms are starting to put paid advertisements on launch vehicles.  The upcoming Conestoga launch (in June) putting the COMET recoverable payload capsule into orbit will have paid advertisements on the side, for Arnold Schwarzenegger's upcoming movie "The Last Action Hero".  Besides the usual logos of the participating organizations, Columbia pictures has paid $500,000 to put ads on the main fuselage of the mission's Conestoga rocket, its booster rockets, and on the COMET payload, which will orbit the Earth for one month.  A concept for this advertising display was published in Space News magazine a couple of months ago.    (As a side note: Robert Lorsch, an advertising executive, is talking about suing NASA.  He charges NASA with appropriating an idea he created with the space agency in 1981 to form corporate advertising sponsorships on NASA spacecraft as a way to get funding for the space program.  Lorsch contends that in selling advertising space on the upcoming COMET, NASA violated an agreement that it "would not use his idea without him being the exclusive representative for NASA and receiving compensation."   This is being disputed, since the launch is a "commercial launch" and NASA is receiving none of the advertising revenues, but the funding for the COMET program is coming from NASA.)    ORBITAL "BILLBOARDS"    Orbital "billboards" have been the staple of science fiction for some time.  Arthur C. Clarke wrote about one example, and Robert Heinlein described another in "The Man Who Sold the Moon".  Several different potential projects have been developed, although none have been implemented, but the most real prior to 1993 being the "Eiffel II" project, which would have placed a large inflatable sculpture in orbit to celebrate the French Republic's Bi-centennial.                                                 (cont)