News Archive

Friday, April 8, 2005 New Article: Advertising to Finance Mars Missions Advertising on Mars. Credit: Luciano Méndez Luciano Méndez has written an article entitled Advertising to Finance Mars Missions about the possibility of using advertising from private companies to finance the first manned missions to Mars. Using the Olympics as an example (an ironic one, as he told me, considering our recent April Fool's news update), Méndez explains how Mars could fuel the sports industry by hosting "games" on the surface. Here's a snippet: The tendency evidenced during the last 16 years would indicate that by the time the first mission gets to Mars, likely in 2020, the Olympic broadcast revenues could easily reach $6 billion dollars. On this basis, and taking into account the additional funding from sponsoring and merchandising, we could estimate that humanity’s arrival on Mars could be profitable enough to fully fund the second mission, starting a cycle in which each mission is financed by the broadcasting rights of the preceding one. Thus, the human Mars program would become a self-financing, privately-sponsored economic enterprise with a strong financial base that would ensure the viability of the project for many decades to come. Just do this! @ 21:34 EST