Should we put ads in space to fund human exploration of the solar system?
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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 ♪ ♪
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03:54 That was WHAT IF,
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04:09 [silence]
04:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]