LunaCorp

LunaCorp

Aimed to send its own, unmanned Lunar Rover to the moon in 1999, financed entirely by the private sector.

Created: 2020-05-09

Updated: 2024-03-02

Company - LunaCorp

Founded
Country
1989
USA
Funding
Yes, ?
Website
LunaCorp

Product/Service

Classification
Surface Spacecraft
Category
Commercial Rover
Advertising
Fields
Moon
Status
Dormant
First launch
Dormant

LunaCorp plans to create multiple commercial and consumer opportunities to support the expedition. And although the company says it has backing from many NASA engineers, its thrust is toward private-sector space exploration.

In its separate orbit, LunaCorp recently announced plans to round up $200 million in corporate support to fund its exploration of the moon in 1999 via a robotic Lunar Rover now being developed by the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

The company is negotiating with several U.S. companies to raise money for the effort by selling the rights to live TV coverage of the surface of the moon for a variety of purposes. It also is marketing many other commercial and consumer tie-ins to the Lunar Rover Expedition.

Plans call for a contest to be the first person to guide the rover off its lander and onto the lunar surface. LunaCorp also hopes to let consumers send digitized messages or photos to the moon via a time capsule it hopes to drop onto the lunar surface Jan. 1, 2000.

LunaCorp's goal is to raise $45 million by selling rights to live TV coverage of its lunar landing, $45 million by selling scientific organizations and companies rights to research, and $60 million from an undisclosed theme-park operator. The park operator is considering building a consumer attraction around the lunar explorer, including beaming live images of the moon to the ride.

Hopes to raise an additional $81 million through corporate sponsorship of contests, promotions and sweepstakes surrounding the Lunar Rover trip, including a ``Desert Trek'' simulation land tour next summer, and $8 million more from sales of Lunar Rover-related merchandise and multimedia products.

RadioShack Jumps Into the Space Game by Sponsoring LunaCorp

The second major event in the last two years to spur space commercialization was the announcement in June of 2000 by RadioShack that it was going to become the first major sponsor of LunaCorp's planned private Icebreaker mission to land a rover on the Moon to search for water-ice deposits, and also serve an entertainment market.

On June 15, 2000, LunaCorp and RadioShack held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to announce this historic partnership. RadioShack committed up to $1 million in first year funding to LunaCorp's efforts, with additional amounts as plans progressed.* RadioShack's interests were not altogether altruistic - they recognized the brand building opportunity an actual space adventure could provide.

"This project presents not only an original branding opportunity for RadioShack as opposed to signs in baseball stadiums, but also allows us to provide an educational and personal involvement opportunity for nearly one million customers who visit RadioShack every day," said Jim McDonald, senior vice president of marketing for RadioShack. Wall Street's reaction to this innovative marketing ploy was swift and positive. In the two weeks following the announcement, RadioShack added more than a billion dollars to its market capitalization. Equally important, for that two week period, RadioShack's stock sped ahead of rivals Best Buy and Circuit City, stocks that it had been in lockstep with over the preceding year. 

The RadioShack Father's Day Commercial 

Dennis Tito was not the only commercial package that flew to ISS in May, 2001. Onboard the TM-32 Soyuz was also a RadioShack bag, and a videocassette to film a Father's Day commercial, the first commercial filmed entirely in outer space.

How this commercial was pulled off is an abject lesson in minefield walking, and highlights the still highly political nature of commercial spaceflight. RadioShack wanted a space success story in the year 2001, to follow up its June, 2000 announcement of sponsorship of LunaCorp's Icebreaker mission to the Moon.

LunaCorp came up with the idea of flying a small payload to ISS and filming a commercial onboard the station. The payload chosen was a small talking picture frame. 

The problem was that RadioShack agreed to do this in March, 2001, less than two months prior to the launch of the TM-32 taxi mission. LunaCorp quickly signed an agreement with Energia and MirCorp to fly the payload, and then began the process of "space qualifying" the picture frame, which in this case Teflon, and coating the circuit board with special shielding to guard against any possible outgassing in case the picture frame was subject to a vacuum.

LunaCorp then prepared picture frames for the two "fathers" on the ISS, and had them personalized with pictures and talking messages from their respective daughters. One of the "fathers" is Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev, pictured below in a still from the RadioShack commercial. 

LunaCorp next approached NASA with the concept for the commercial and asked permission to use the American "father" onboard. NASA declined to allow any American to appear in the commercial, claiming that Federal law precluded any commercial use of the likeness of any American astronaut. So, the commercial became an all-Russian affair, with TM-32 pilot Talgat Musabayev presenting the talking picture frame to Yuri Usachev. The resulting commercial aired extensively in the United States in early June, 2001. 

The story does not end there, however, as there were additional commercial products aboard the TM32 taxi flight. As it turns out, both Lego and the magazine Popular Mechanics flew products and banners, and both video and still images were taken. Although stills of both of these events appeared in the media, neither company was able to produce a television commercial similar to that made for RadioShack.

Further, Pizza Hut had previously flown a thermally stabilized pizza to ISS and filmed Yuri Usachev eating it. Unfortunately, the Americans on board ISS were involved in the filming, and NASA ·refused to allow Pizza Hut to create a commercial using the footage. Only RadioShack, by using the Russian "side" of ISS, was able produce a commercial that actually aired (including in Game 4 of the NBA finals). 

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