What If There Were Ads in Space?

WHAT IF

Should we put ads in space to fund human exploration of the solar system?

Transcript

00:00 Imagine, instead of looking up and seeing the stars,

00:07 you see something like this.

00:10 Coca-Cola ads are seen on billboards,

00:12 magazines, online, and now in space.

00:17 How would this affect our night sky?

00:20 How would it change space travel?

00:23 And is this something you'll see one day?

00:27 This is WHAT IF,

00:28 and here's what would happen if there were ads in space.

00:33 So, will we ever see ads in space?

00:36 The answer is, most likely.

00:39 A Russian company has begun prototyping what that might look like.

00:43 They want to place thousands of briefcase-sized satellites

00:46 nearly 500,000 km (1,000 mi) from the surface of the Earth.

00:50 These satellites would reflect light from the Sun

00:53 and be seen during the night on Earth.

00:56 Luckily, these ads would only be up for about six minutes or so

00:59 before they moved on to another part of the Earth.

01:02 But even when we don't see them, they'll still affect our world.

01:06 Why?

01:08 The first thing you'd notice with ads in space

01:11 would be a lack of stars due to light pollution.

01:14 Light pollution around the world is already bad enough,

01:17 but with big bright ads in space, you can expect it to get even worse.

01:21 Even if you don't see any ads,

01:23 there's a good chance that you'll still see the effects of them.

01:26 Because light from the ads would be impossible to control,

01:29 you'd likely be seeing radiant light coming off of them.

01:32 Ads in space might be the start of a world without stars.

01:37 Not only would this make the sky less pretty,

01:39 it would also affect astronomical research.

01:43 Observatories and astrologists would be rendered practically useless.

01:48 Without astronomy, it'd be challenging to learn anything new about space.

01:52 Eventually, the advertising could become so overwhelming

01:55 that the entire sky is taken up with ads,

01:58 and that'd be all you're able to see.

02:00 And unfortunately, this could become a reality.

02:04 That's because according to the United Nations Outer Space Treaty,

02:07 no one can own space.

02:09 So technically, companies could advertise anywhere around the world.

02:14 That is, as long as they get permission from the country they're departing from.

02:18 One country you won't get permission to deploy a space ad from

02:21 is the United States.

02:23 That's because logos in space that can be seen from Earth

02:26 have been banned by the U.S.

02:28 But even though they won't let space ads depart from the country,

02:32 who's to say a company from Europe wouldn't fly their own ads above America?

02:37 If there are tons of ads in space,

02:39 another thing we need to worry about is more space junk.

02:42 Space is pretty unpredictable,

02:44 and with more and more objects hovering above the Earth,

02:47 a number of things could happen.

02:49 There's always the chance that these ads could get hit by meteors and asteroids,

02:53 and then collide with our satellites.

02:56 If our satellites go down, this would affect everything

02:59 from communications, to power lines, to transportation systems.

03:04 It might sound like a bleak reality,

03:06 but there is one good thing that could result from space advertising.

03:10 If companies were to pay to put their ads in space,

03:13 they'd have to pay space companies to get them up there.

03:16 This could be a way of pumping money into space exploration,

03:20 an already criminally underfunded industry.

03:23 Hey, if a company is willing to spend millions of dollars

03:26 for a 60-second commercial during the Super Bowl,

03:28 imagine how much they would pay to get their ad in space.

03:32 With more money being funneled into companies like NASA,

03:35 they could use it to explore more of our solar system.

03:38 Maybe this would lead to us landing on and colonizing Mars.

03:43 What happens after that?

03:45 Wait, that sounds like a story for another WHAT IF.

03:49 ♪ ♪

03:51 ♪ ♪

03:54 That was WHAT IF,

03:56 and here's what will happen if you click like or subscribe.

04:00 We'll get to make more of the videos you love,

04:03 educate the masses,

04:04 and maybe even save the world.

04:06 There's only one way to find out.

04:09 [silence]

04:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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