How come NASA wants their astronauts’ faces appear on the cereal boxes? But that’s not all; they also want to add private company logos on their rockets in a mission to make astronauts popular figures for the youth and get some private funding too.
In a NASA TV broadcast, NASA director Bridenstine stated his reasons for the expansion of their endorsements:
“My children can tell you all of the players on the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, or all of the players on the Houston Rockets.”
He added that his dream is to “see kids growing up, instead of wanting to be a professional sports star, I’d like to see them growing up wanting to be a NASA astronaut.”
It is a great initiative to inspire the kids to dream big, added Bridenstine:
“I’d like to see, maybe one day, NASA astronauts on the cover of a cereal box.”
But considering the exploration of space is not cheap, NASA needs to pay the bills, so selling off naming rights to some of their scientific pursuits is a good idea. The U.S. space agency won’t make it to Mars with such a low budget, and if selling naming rights helps, why not do it?
Bridenstine said during a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council the following:
“Why would we want to sell the naming rights? Well, because then those private companies can then embed in their marketing campaigns NASA. We can embed NASA into the culture and fabric of American society and inspire generations of folks that will create those next capabilities to keep America preeminent not only in space but in science and technology and discovery and exploration.”
Astronauts will be able to pursue personal endorsement opportunities, just like sports figures can. However, it will all come with a lot of rules and regulations. We’ll see how it will all pan out, but it’s certain that NASA needs the money, and many U.S. companies would want to support them.
According to the vice president for government contracts at Maxar Technologies, Mike Gold, astronauts could even start filming adverts on the ISS, which is now forbidden:
“Speaking of astronauts, the committee will examine giving them the freedom to pursue endorsements and other media opportunities.”
He concluded that the astronauts are “American heroes, and deserve to be treated as such.”
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.