Could you Make a Billboard in Space?

[AtomicSnails]

This idea has been in my mind the past few days, and as someone who is not the best at math, I decided to see if my fellow forum members could help me out. I know that you can see the ISS if the time is right, although I realize what you are really seeing is more of the reflection of the sun. So my question is: let's say some company wanted to put a giant billboard into a safe stable orbit (that orbit hopefully you guys can help me figure out) how big would this billboard need to be so that someone standing on earth could see it and feasibly read what is being advertised? The second part of this question. How would one go about making this? What kind of materials would most likely be used? Would it be more reasonable to snap it together over the course of years? Or would you launch up a giant banner and unravel it? How would you maintain that the advert is facing towards the earth? And how would you eventually get rid of the giant billboard?

 

So far from what I can figure out. I would think some sort of lightweight canvas would be the best way to go. Perhaps multiple launches of somehow stitching these giant pieces together. However, in terms of size, cost, safety, and so on. I have no clue. 

Would love to hear some feedback. Interested to see what you guys can come up with.

 

- AtomicSnails

[kerbiloid]

Human eye resolution is ~1 angular minute.
Treating this as a pixel angular size, you need the letter height at least 10 minutes = 1/6 degree = 0.003 radian.
banner height / orbit height = 0.003
banner height = 0.003 * 450 ~= 1.5 km.

[Scotius]

Huh. Not that much . To write "DRINK PEPSI!" you would need something like an inflatable square baloon (think Echo satellites) about 15 kilometers across. Doable...someday. Though i wonder how long such broad and fragile obiect would last in LEO until space trash would rip it apart.

[AtomicSnails]

Well perhaps there is some more more rigid  material we can use? Inflatable sounds good, but as you said it is fragile. Maybe you could have sort of an RCS device to move it out of the way of major space trash? Or maybe there is some magical orbit I don't know of where space trash is less common. However a higher orbit would of course increase the size. I am also trying to think of ways that this could be done with current/close future tech. Also I am thinking what companies could afford the cost of building a megastructure like this. What do you guys think?

Edited September 8, 2016 by AtomicSnails
Small typo, I really need sleep

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

Why not? As elegantly explained, it would be hard to make one visible by naked eye but you could make a billboard visible with binoculars pretty easily. I would imagine it could be fabricated from film and truss structure like ISS main solar panels so it could have a solar panel on the backside and lit up adverts or other things on side facing the Earth.

Spoiler

How would I get rid of it? If it was up to me everything going up there would be required to have a plan and means to deorbit safely. In my saves this is achieved with few separatrons, ant or some modded engine.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

Not that much . To write "DRINK PEPSI!" you would need something like an inflatable square baloon (think Echo satellites) about 15 kilometers across.

15/1.5 = 10 lines/10 chars. So, our results are the same.

1 hour ago, AtomicSnails said:

Well perhaps there is some more more rigid  material we can use?

Clouds and laser beam. But beware patents..

[Nibb31]

I think the inflatable sphere is probably the best idea, with a huge video projector in the center, projecting on the side that faces Earth.

I wonder what the amazonian tribes or the Sentilese would think about it...  as well as the astronomy community. I think most people would consider it a major nuisance and would probably generate more bad publicity than actually urge people to drink a Pepsi.

[kerbiloid]

50 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

 as well as the astronomy community

As well as the astronavigation sensors.

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Scotius said:

Huh. Not that much . To write "DRINK PEPSI!" you would need something like an inflatable square baloon (think Echo satellites) about 15 kilometers across. Doable...someday. Though i wonder how long such broad and fragile obiect would last in LEO until space trash would rip it apart.

Drag would be an major issue you need to have it far higher than normal low orbit 
Solar pressure would also be an issue with something large and very light. 

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Drag would be an major issue you need to have it far higher than normal low orbit 
Solar pressure would also be an issue with something large and very light. 

You wouldn't want it to stay up there forever anyway. Ad campaigns don't last more than a year or two. You want it to come down eventually.

[AtomicSnails]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You wouldn't want it to stay up there forever anyway. Ad campaigns don't last more than a year or two. You want it to come down eventually.

So in that case you would want to use the cheapest material possible. What would be the cost of it? lets assume we use either the large inflatable orb, or the thin sheets, what would the cost be before factoring in launching? Also I guess since we need a higher orbit we need to recalculate the size of the actual object. Also, we still need to figure out what companies (if any) would even be able to afford this.

[Dman979]

 

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You wouldn't want it to stay up there forever anyway. Ad campaigns don't last more than a year or two. You want it to come down eventually.

Yeah, but company slogans seem to stay around for a long time- "The pause that refreshes," "Eat Fresh," etc.

What if this billboard isn't inflatable? Also, there's a thing in space that makes some inflatable things pop- the vacuum. How heavy would the inflatable material need to be? I know that Bigelowe Aerospace made an inflatable habitat, but the bill board will be at least 10³ larger.

And how much would this thing mass?

[AtomicSnails]

15 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

 

And how much would this thing mass?

Well considering the weight it would have to be multiple launches. the question is how many launches/what would be the most cost effective amount of launches (maybe 20 launches with falcon heavy costs more then 30 falcon 9 launches) and just in general what will be the most cost effective way to do this? We are needing to approach this from the viewpoint of a business (A deranged business who thinks this would be a good way to advertise, but still) 

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You wouldn't want it to stay up there forever anyway. Ad campaigns don't last more than a year or two.

"Nothing is forever. Nothing but Cola!"

[Nibb31]

It wouldn't necessarily be that big or expensive or complicated. It would basically be Project Echo on steroids:

Echo 2 was 41 meters diameter and weighed about 250kg. It flew on a Thor-Agena.

You could probably extrapolate the weight for a 1500m diameter equivalent.

Edited September 8, 2016 by Nibb31

[_Augustus_]

11 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

It wouldn't necessarily be that big or expensive or complicated. It would basically be Project Echo on steroids:

Echo 2 was 41 meters diameter and weighed about 250kg. It flew on a Thor-Agena.

You could probably extrapolate the weight for a 1500m diameter equivalent.

Uhh, it would be in excess of 300 metric tons, too big for any existing launchers.

[AtomicSnails]

14 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Uhh, it would be in excess of 300 metric tons, too big for any existing launchers.

Perhaps you could launch it in multiple parts, seal it together with some sort of glue? also need to consider the weight of the paint for the lettering.

 

Also going to talk from the business standpoint for a second.

here are some of the most wealthy companies (in a semi random order)

1. Walmart
2. Samsung
3. Shell
4. Apple
5. Volkswagon

According to wikipedia as of January first 2016, Walmart (the largest revenue) is 482 Billion Dollars. I wonder if that would be enough for the multiple launches and construction costs needed. Looking at all the suggestions I have seen from you guys so far, a large project ECHO does seem to be the best option, so now that we have the way it would be made, I guess now we need to figure out size, orbit, cost, etc. So that hopefully we can pull some final numbers on this.

[kerbiloid]

39 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Echo 2 was 41 meters diameter and weighed about 250kg. It flew on a Thor-Agena.

Concentrated nightmare of megalophobia.

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, Dman979 said:

Also, there's a thing in space that makes some inflatable things pop- the vacuum.

No, it's not vacuum that makes inflatable things pop - differential pressure being too high for the burst strength of the material makes things pop.   And there's no reason an inflated structure on orbit (especially one meant to have a limited lifetime) needs have an internal pressure over a few grams per square meter.

[Daveroski]

The biggest problem as far as I can see is not getting a light enough method for creating a billboard but anchoring it sufficiently so that the sun doesn't blow it away.

 

[justidutch]

Instead of trying to get a mega-structure, mega-canvas, mega-sphere or anything mega into orbit, I would go for a different approach.

I am picturing a collection of cubesats, each with 3 lights (RGB) to act as individual pixels.  The cubesats would be able to be manoeuvred into whatever configuration is desired at any time, continuously face the earth's surface, and display the appropriate colour.  Therefore you are not restricted to just one slogan or advert, you could change it up to anything at any time.  Kind of like a big TV screen in orbit.  You would probably need thousands of the things, but whatever.

Edited September 8, 2016 by justidutch

[AtomicSnails]

19 minutes ago, justidutch said:

Instead of trying to get a mega-structure, mega-canvas, mega-sphere or anything mega into orbit, I would go for a different approach.

I am picturing a collection of cubesats, each with 3 lights (RGB) to act as individual pixels.  The cubesats would be able to be manoeuvred into whatever configuration is desired at any time, continuously face the earth's surface, and display the appropriate colour.  Therefore you are not restricted to just one slogan or advert, you could change it up to anything at any time.  Kind of like a big TV screen in orbit.  You would probably need thousands of the things, but whatever.

Thats actually a really good idea, although it would be extremely expensive to send up all of those, also I would imagine that the lights would need to be really powerful. That being said, I don't have any knowledge of lights that far away, so I would need info from some of you guys. Otherwise that seems like a really good solution. The lack of giant structure would mean you won't have to worry about a solar sail issue.

[kerbiloid]

Kilometer-sized decepticon on Arduino orbiting Earth...

And how harmlessly  all that was beginning: "Can we draw a poster on ISS?".

[_Augustus_]

5 hours ago, justidutch said:

Instead of trying to get a mega-structure, mega-canvas, mega-sphere or anything mega into orbit, I would go for a different approach.

I am picturing a collection of cubesats, each with 3 lights (RGB) to act as individual pixels.  The cubesats would be able to be manoeuvred into whatever configuration is desired at any time, continuously face the earth's surface, and display the appropriate colour.  Therefore you are not restricted to just one slogan or advert, you could change it up to anything at any time.  Kind of like a big TV screen in orbit.  You would probably need thousands of the things, but whatever.

You'd need over ten thousand CubeSats to make a 1km square billboard. This would require an entire Falcon 9 launch.

However, a Falcon 9 couldn't lift more than a few thousand CubeSats to orbit at once due to payload fairing size.

The average CubeSat costs around $7500, and a Falcon 9 launch costs $61.2 million. The CubeSats' cost would be $75 million, and the Falcon 9s would be another few hundred million.

And remember, you'd probably need a few dozen extra, as 10000 cubesats is more than the combined total of every spaceflight ever, and there have been about 5 catastrophic collisions/impacts on spacecraft that caused them to be disabled.

All in all, you're looking at a half-billion dollar project.

Now, let's see what an inflatable like I talked about earlier would cost. I was apparently completely wrong..

The balloon material itself would cost $16000, and the mass would be....

2.198 metric tons! 

That's enough for a small rocket like a Delta II to get into orbit! Sure, we're not accounting for the fact that space-grade Mylar is slightly more expensive, or the R&D needed to produce parts to inflate the balloon, but that can't be that much of a price increase. The cost of one of these balloons would be less than $75 million, enough for Taco Bell to easily afford. The balloon would get punctured pretty fast, but it would last long enough to get 50 million more people to buy tacos. Heck, an EELV, Falcon 9, or Proton could get it to GTO and park it above the US! I'm not sure if the balloon would fit in a fairing, but whatever.

Now, I just pray that no one ever launches one.....

 

 

Edited September 9, 2016 by _Augustus_

[Plusck]

6 hours ago, justidutch said:

Instead of trying to get a mega-structure, mega-canvas, mega-sphere or anything mega into orbit, I would go for a different approach.

I am picturing a collection of cubesats, each with 3 lights (RGB) to act as individual pixels.  The cubesats would be able to be manoeuvred into whatever configuration is desired at any time, continuously face the earth's surface, and display the appropriate colour.  Therefore you are not restricted to just one slogan or advert, you could change it up to anything at any time.  Kind of like a big TV screen in orbit.  You would probably need thousands of the things, but whatever.

That's the conclusion I came to too.

I'd forget about the lights though and just make each one extremely reflective.

Assuming that they wouldn't be reliably reflecting the right way, you'd probably need three or four per pixel to keep the glittering readable. Using a dot matrix printer font (basically 5x7 matrix per letter), with an average of 15 pixels needed per letter (assuming your cubesats will move to the right position to light up each pixel, rather than keeping a strict formation and turning to switch on or off), "DRINK PEPSI" would need only 10 x 15 x 4 = 600 cubesats. It would only be visible just after dusk and just before dawn, but it would be cool.
Wouldn't convince me to drink Pepsi though...