A Futuristic Advertising Concept

In 1993, Mike Lawson, an aerospace entrepreneur based in Roswell, Georgia, unveiled a vision for a futuristic advertising platform: space billboards. This concept was not a fanciful scheme, but rather a meticulously planned proposal for a 1996 launch. Lawson’s team of engineers would launch a package of tightly-wound mylar into orbit, approximately 180 miles above the Earth. Once in orbit, the material would unfurl into a thin, reflective sheet, up to a mile long and a quarter mile tall, bordered by a series of mylar tubes that would inflate to create a rigid frame holding the mega-banner taut. The sheet would catch the sun’s rays, amplified by small mirrors attached to the platform, and reflect them into the atmosphere, creating a roughly moon-sized image in the sky of a single design printed on the banner.

According to Lawson, the visual would likely be a large company logo, as the resolution would be too low to read any ad copy without a telescope. As the billboard orbited the Earth, the image would reach every corner of the globe, visible for about 10 minutes a day per location. Popular Science notes that the concept of advertising in space was already well established by 1993, with sci-fi authors ← →