Space is gradually becoming a tourist trap in the twenty-first century. According to a weekend Business Insider report, SpaceX is partnering up with Geometric Energy Corporation, Canadian research and development organization, to launch what’s effectively a beefed-up digital billboard into orbit.
GEC co-founder and CEO Samuel Reid told the outlet that the company is working on a CubeSat satellite, which will be equipped with a selfie stick and a pixelated display screen on one side to show advertisements, logos, and other art, and will be launched into orbit by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket before the rocket reaches the moon. Once there, the selfie stick will record the display screen and livestream it for all to see on YouTube or Twitch. The CubeSat is expected to launch in early 2022, according to Reid.
Once it’s up and running, you’ll be able to buy tokens to claim specific pixels on the screen, decide what those pixels should look like, and select the duration of the ad. Beta stands for the X coordinate, Rhoe for the Y coordinate, Gamma for the brightness, Kappa for the color, and XI for the time.
Corporations, artists, and anyone else interested in buying tokens can do so using cryptocurrencies, and GEC plans to support dogecoin payments in the future. What could be a more appropriate application for a meme cryptocurrency than purchasing space ads?
Reid told Business Insider, “I’m aiming to develop something that can democratize access to space and enable for decentralized engagement.” “Hopefully, people don’t waste their money on something inappropriate, rude, or offensive.” After all, we’re talking about the internet. I’d say it’ll be about 24 hours until someone pays a lot of money to make a crappy picture orbit the Earth.
When it comes to money, Reid told Business Insider that he wouldn’t be able to say how much each CubeSat token would cost. However, given the amount of time, effort, and money it took to get the billboard up there in the first place, ad space is unlikely to be inexpensive. SpaceX and GEC did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment on the situation right away.
This isn’t the first time the two have collaborated. GEC revealed in May that it had paid SpaceX exclusively in dogecoin in order to guarantee a slot for its satellite on a future lunar mission. In a nutshell, dogecoin is on its way to the moon. The mission, appropriately dubbed Doge-1, is set to launch in early 2022.
Via: GizModo