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Plans to launch gigantic glowing billboards into orbit have run into trouble
now that America’s politicians have joined the fight for the right to
advert-free skies. ‘We don’t allow billboards in our wilderness areas. We
shouldn’t let them put billboards in space. Space belongs to all the people
of the world and should be used for the benefit of all humankind,’ said
Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, as he presented a bill that would ban
orbiting adverts.

In April, Space Marketing, an advertising company in Georgia, announced
plans for inflatable space billboards. Each one would be almost 2 kilometres
long and a kilometre wide, and would appear as large as the full Moon.
Billions of people would get the message at sunrise and sunset, said the
company.

The proposal outraged astronomers and environmentalists, and prompted the
formation of a cross-party coalition of US politicians opposed to it (This
Week, 29 May). The scheme ‘would turn our morning and evening skies into the
equivalent of the side of a bus’, says Edward Markey, a congressman from
Massachusetts.

The law would effectively ban the launch of any billboard from American
rockets, by denying the licence needed for a commercial launch.