NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine recently suggested that the space agency seek corporate sponsorships to help augment the meager appropriations Congress grants it to do everything from exploring the solar system to operating the International Space Station. Ideas range from selling naming rights to spacecraft to allowing astronauts to endorse products in exchange for advertising fees.
Currently, federal law prohibits any government agency or employee from engaging in this kind of advertising business. For Bridenstine’s idea to work, Congress would not only have to lift the prohibition where NASA is concerned but also ensure that any revenue thus generated goes directly to the space agency and not into the general federal government fund.
All sorts of objections are already being heard. NASA’s commercial partners are afraid that such a scheme might divert advertising money it would like to generate for their own missions. Morina Koren, writing in the Atlantic, thinks that the whole idea is just a bit tacky. Would the Doritos Space Telescope have the same cachet as naming it after a great scientist such as Hubble or Kepler? We are not even getting into the conflict of interest possibilities.
Perhaps a more decorous way exists for NASA to augment its funding that is already working for another government-funded operation, that being public television. The Public Broadcasting System is partially paid for by the government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. PBS also gets money from member station fees and corporations, private foundations and individual donors. Member stations also can raise money through corporate and private donations.
NASA could make a similar arrangement without having to plaster its spacecraft with corporate logos like a NASCAR race car or having astronauts pitch beer. Let us suppose that the United States establishes the Corporation for Public Space Exploration. The CPSE could then raise money that could be disbursed to various NASA missions to augment the funding it gets directly from government appropriations.
Indeed, individual missions would also be able to raise corporate, foundation and private money as well. The money could be raised through public service announcements, internet advertising and direct solicitation. Space missions, whether they are private, run by NASA or a combination of the two, could sell exclusive documentation rights to television networks and even film studios.
Private memberships for space missions would come in levels of contribution, with various benefits for each amount of money. Say, $100 might buy you a T-shirt, a plastic scale model of the spacecraft and a certificate. And $10,000 gets you a trip to the launch, where you can watch from the VIP section and a meeting with some of the mission scientists and engineers.
Imagine seeing on television in the near future “This mission back to the moon is courteously brought to you by NASA, Exxon-Mobil, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations and millions of space enthusiasts like you.”
On the one hand, the system could not only provide a supplemental revenue stream for NASA space missions in an era when Congress might be reluctant to kick in more money. The public exploration financing system would also provide a way for people to feel that they are directly participating in missions ranging from Mars rovers to probes to the outer planets. Pride of co-sponsorship could increase public support for space exploration in general.
On the other hand, the federal government, especially Congress, has to be made to realize that the extra financing scheme should not be used as an excuse to cut the appropriations that NASA gets. The sponsorship financing should be seen as a supplement, not as a replacement. Otherwise the purpose of the plan is defeated.
Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond.” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
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