Don't put ads in outer space, Commercial Alert tells NASA

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert		October 12, 2001

Commercial Alert sent the following letter today to NASA Administrator
Daniel S. Goldin, regarding NASA's plans to put commercial advertising
in space and to promote the entertainment industry.

Dear Mr. Goldin: 

Two hundred years ago, our nation had just laid to rest perhaps its most
bitter election, fought, in part, over whether the speech rights of its
citizens might be upheld.  The victor of that battle, our third
president, Thomas Jefferson, had defended the rights of Americans to
speak without fear of imprisonment or deportation through the Alien and
Sedition Acts.  In many ways, speech, and how we use it, has defined
ourselves as a nation.

Now comes a new issue regarding our nation's use of speech.  This, too,
will help define our nation.  As you know, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) is preparing guidelines for the use of NASA
missions and outer space for commercial speech, advertising and
marketing purposes.  NASA has declined to release its report, titled
"Enhanced Strategy for the Development of Space Commerce," but its
contours are available in news accounts and a draft report on the NASA
Watch website.

In the draft report, NASA's sets forth a lofty vision, to "improve the
quality of life on Earth."  This high-minded vision is wholly undercut
by plans to put commercial advertising in space, to merchandise, and to
promote our nation's controversial entertainment industry.

The draft report proposes that NASA adopt a process for "granting and
controlling the right of companies to sponsor NASA missions and
programs." In other words, we may soon see taxpayer-financed Burger King
Space Shuttle missions, or perhaps a Disney Cassini mission to Saturn.

The Associated Press (AP) reports that NASA would, among other things,
seek "corporate sponsors that could plaster their emblems and logos
alongside NASA's" and allow "merchandising that promotes the so-called
NASA brand."  For example, AP reported, "NASA might allow McDonald's to
put its logo on the space station galley in exchange for McDonald's
promoting space exploration to kids."

NASA's greatest asset is the high regard of Americans.  The decision to
convert NASA into a shill for the entertainment industry could easily
erode this support.  The entertainment industry is a deeply
controversial one.  It is the focus of many policy battles over issues
related to anti-trust, and the promotion of violence, alcohol, tobacco,
pornography, materialism, boorishness, and a variety of other products
and values that many Americans do not approve of.  Many Americans, both
Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, are alarmed by
the values that the entertainment industry is promoting to our children.
By partnering with the entertainment industry, NASA will inevitably be
caught up in these controversies, to the detriment of its public
support.

This is the wrong path for our space program, and for our country.  At
this moment, our nation finds itself in a war for our most precious
values.  Among these are freedom of speech and expression.  Should not
our actions in space be a showcase for these values?  

NASA could use space to promote and embody values that America is
rightly proud of, such as democracy, or freedom of speech and
expression.  That would mean, for example, promoting the ability of all
to speak, not just those corporations with the money to buy their way
onto NASA launches. 

What our country does in space is a direct expression of what we really
are; and to sell advertising and peddle entertainment products in space
is to confirm the most cynical view of ourselves.  This is a time to
hold our beacon high, not let it trail in the dust of corporate
huckstering.  

It is not the proper role of NASA or the federal government to promote
entertainment products, or to assist corporations in marketing, or help
prop up sagging or tarnished corporate images.  These are functions
properly left to the private sector.

Adopting the values of Madison Avenue, placing advertising in space and
hawking the wares of the entertainment corporations do not further
NASA's vision of "improv[ing] the quality of life on Earth."  In fact,
they only cheapen NASA and its mission.  

Years after he left the presidency, Thomas Jefferson himself warned of
the importance of keeping the corporation in its proper place.  "I
hope," he wrote, "we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our
monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a
trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." 

We urge you to return to the drawing board, and to think of uses for
space that Thomas Jefferson might be proud of, uses that would represent
not the worst but the best of our nation.

Sincerely,


Gary Ruskin
Executive Director

<------letter ends here------>
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
1. Please contact Mr. Courtney A. Stadd, NASA Chief of Staff.  Mr. Stadd
is managing NASA's policy on advertising in space. Please tell him
(politely) that: (a) advertising and marketing do not belong in outer
space; and, (b) NASA should not promote corporations or their products.  

Mr. Stadd's email address is <courtney.stadd@hq.nasa.gov>. His fax is
202.358.2811.  You can call Mr. Stadd through the NASA switchboard at
202.358.0000.

2. Please contact Senator James Jeffords (I-VT) and Representative Ed
Markey (D-MA).  In 1993, Sen. Jeffords and Rep. Markey sponsored the
Space Advertising Prohibition Act, to prohibit the use of outer space
for advertising purposes.  Please ask them to reintroduce this
legislation now.  Sen. Jeffords's email address is
<vermont@jeffords.senate.gov> and the email address for Rep. Markey's
chief of staff, David Moulton, is <david.moulton@mail.house.gov>. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION
See Commercial Alert's web page on NASA and commercialism in outer
space, at <http://www.commercialalert.org/space/index.html>.


Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the commercial culture within its
proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy. 

Commercial Alert's website is at <http://www.commercialalert.org>.

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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
-- 
Gary Ruskin | gary@essential.org 
Commercial Alert | http://www.commercialalert.org
Congressional Accountability Project | http://www.congressproject.org
phone: 503.235.8012 | fax: 503.235.5073

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