DescentBB

I don't know enough about how NASA is already financed. Would selling ad space on the rock cover the cost of the entire mission, less the costs covered from what little funding would come from elsewhere?

Do rocket launches draw enough spectators and cameras to do this? Would the target audiences of NASCAR sponsors be reached? I mean space exploration isn't exactly car racing. Maybe new sponsors would be a better fit?

Reply long and prosper.

Not nearly enough for the Shuttle, the average cost per flight was about $1.5 billion dollars (2008 dollars).

Say if there were 11 spots and the average cost was $136,363,636? It would work. But the add space might not be worth that much. What would the add space have to cost in order for companies to buy them?

I think this would be far more practical for getting into space in a commercial way:

"From Avatar to Aliens, mining in space has been a staple of science fiction. And now James Cameron, the man behind both those films, is part of plan to make it into science fact."

"The venture, Planetary Resources Inc certainly has some powerful backers: Google founder and chief executive Larry Page is helping to fund the project, as is Google chairman Eric Schmidt. The computer pioneer and former presidential candidate Ross Perot is also behind the company."

http://www.channel4.com/news/is-the-fut ... g-in-space
http://www.planetaryresources.com/

JPAerospace do this on their "to the edge of space" balloon trips.
http://www.jpaerospace.com/sponsorship3.html
http://www.jpaerospace.com/100spacead.html
customer pays $400 - $4200 USD for one of these ads onboard


This one for Toshiba might have brought in some serious cash.
http://www.jpaerospace.com/away39-42.html