There’s a bit in Fight Club when the narrator talks about how corporations are going to name everything when we get into space (“the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks“). While hopefully (hopefully) it’s not going to be quite that terrifying, we might be moving ever so slightly in that direction, with NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine floating the idea of NASA selling off naming rights to rockets and spacecraft.
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As the Washington Post is reporting, Bridenstine told a meeting of an advisory council of outside experts that they wanted guidance on whether this was a possibility:
Is it possible for NASA to offset some of its costs by selling the naming rights to its spacecraft, or the naming rights to its rockets? I’m telling you there is interest in that right now. The question is: Is it possible? The answer is: I don’t know, but we want somebody to give us advice on whether it is.
He also broached the thought of astronauts being more integrated into the media and marketing:
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. I’d like to see, maybe one day, NASA astronauts on the cover of a cereal box, embedded into the American culture.
As the WaPo notes, because NASA astronauts are all technically public servants, they are bound by ‘ethics regulations that prevent government officials from using public office for private gain’.
This all seems a bit weird but hey, as long as it gets us into space so we can finally figure out if that’s where Bigfoot comes from, why not I guess.
