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| 4 Precursor Mission Design | 4.8 Marketing Plan |
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Actions described here have the task to maintain public interest in space-affairs on an elevated level after the "peak" during the race in order to prepare the public for the next steps and to keep the investor interested. Rovotime After the race that will last approximately ten Earth-days, there will be some days left before the arrival of the lunar-night which will probably disable most of the rovers. During this period, rovertime (rovotime) will be sold to fun-parks like Disneyland, from where visitors will be able to remote control the rover. The merchandizing power during this period depends mainly on the number of rovers that survived the race. Since the endpoint of the race is at the lander, which is equipped with a higher resolution camera, the media-coverage of these last rover-activities will be of better quality and easier to sell in order to retain public interest after more than one week of racing. Advertising and Preparation for Next Steps During the whole time the first space-art-gallery deployed from the lander will be "open" to the public via the camera of the lander. This will attract a new public that might be totally uninterested by the other aspects of the race, and so attract also new advertisers aiming at such a public. Another income-source, which is more or less independent from the race, is a projector placed on the lander. This will be a very simple, light and small apparatus capable to project pictures and videos onto the lunar surface, which can then be filmed also by a very small camera that transmits these pictures live to Earth. Ideally this constellation is built to survive the lunar night and represents the first remote-controlled advertising device in space. To ensure ongoing public and therefore advertiser interest everybody should be able to send short text-messages via the web-site onto the lunar surface, which may be interspliced with some commercials. Fees for pictures and videos of advertisement will ensure a steady income in addition to the ads on the web-site from which the messages can be sent. After the race, participating teams are obliged to perform some public outreach activities while dressed in "crater wear" and pose with a duplicate of the winning rover, just like beauty contest winners. Their aim is to prolong the financial income (shared between the teams and the organization) and promote and assure support for the next contests. Some time after the race, a feature film
directed by one of the big Hollywood directors may again popularize
the race, raise money for the next competition, and most of all,
prolong public interest in space exploration in order to prepare
for the next steps in the human exploration of space. NEXT > [Home] [ISU] |