This space for rent: NASA considers ads on spacecraft - good or bad?

[Angrboda]

Why NASA’s next rockets might say Budweiser on the side

The constant creep of corporate America into all aspects of everyday life — from the Allstate Sugar Bowl to Minute Maid Park — may soon conquer a new frontier.

The final frontier.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has directed the space agency to look at boosting its brand by selling naming rights to rockets and spacecraft and allowing its astronauts to appear in commercials and on cereal boxes, as if they were celebrity athletes.

While officials stress that nothing has been decided, the idea could mark a giant cultural leap for the taxpayer-funded government agency and could run into ethics regulations that prevent government officials from using public office for private gain. Astronauts may be the most venerated employees in the federal government, but they are still civil servants bound by regulations.

What do you think?  Should NASA go where no space agency has gone before?

[RoadRunner79]

If it gets them more money to work with for projects, then all the power to them. I’ve always wondered however, just how many more bags of Doritos you have to sell in order to justify the cost of a Super Bowl advertisement? I might appreciate a well made Budweiser ad, but it doesn’t make me any more likely to buy that swill. I would probably wonder the same about an enterprise such as this.

[The Grand Nudger]

Good or bad..depends.  I think I could die happy seeing a trojan add on the side of a delta iv heavy. Right up on the tip of the fairings.
(but just the tip)

[I_am_not_mafia]

Currently imagining Durex paying to have the fairing of a rocket painted like a ribbed condom ...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Meh, NASCAR has done that for decades, fake news!

Oh, wait, you didn't say NASCAR, did you...

[The Grand Nudger]

Currently imagining Durex paying to have the fairing of a rocket painted like a ribbed condom ...

"Proud to sponsor this historic mission to uranus"

[Anomalocaris]

I think in microcosm, it appears to be an expedient way for National ASA to get closer to the next potentially worthy goal.

In the macrocosm, it represents another worrisome diminution of the concept that there can be larger and longer term public good greater in overall value to the society than the sum of the value of successful profit seeking by private cooperations and individuals. This is because it further weakens the practical mechanism (public funding) that enable such greater public good to be effectively pursued in defiance of private individual and cooperations’s desire to withhold as much resource as possible from the public good in order to devote it to pursuit of private profit.

[Angrboda]

I think in microcosm, it appears to be an expedient way for National ASA to get closer to the next potentially worthy goal.

In the macrocosm, it represents another worrisome diminution of the concept that there can be larger and longer term public good greater in overall value to the society than the sum of the value of successful profit seeking by private cooperations and individuals.   This is because it further weakens the practical mechanism (public funding) that enable such greater public good to be effectively pursued in defiance of private individual and cooperations’s desire to withhold as much resource as possible from the public good in order to devote it to pursuit of private profit.

This reminds me of a recent article I read about atheists and charity (here). The ultimate point of the article was that atheists (and liberals) tend to prefer to give back to society through the compulsory mechanism of taxation. To that end, perhaps this does represent a worrisome step away from compulsory funding of scientific ventures such as space exploration and a step towards privatization. I'm not sure though that I can agree that this is necessarily a bad thing. At minimum, you'd have to establish why it is bad, rather than simply assert that the alternative, public funding of NASA, is in and of itself good (or better). The typical arguments against private or commercial funding here do not all seem to work. I could see the possibility that sponsored missions receive priority over unsponsored missions, but it's a questionable assumption that such would occur. Maybe it can't help but happen. Other complaints about commercialization and privatization, such as decreased efficiencies, higher costs, and increased fraud and corruption seem unlikely. Those are the typical arguments against deriving funding from non-government sources, and I don't see them as applying here.

[Minimalist]

Fucking stupid idea.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Currently imagining Durex paying to have the fairing of a rocket painted like a ribbed condom ...

"Proud to sponsor this historic mission to uranus"

Of course when the fairing detaches it would look like the condom is splitting ...