Estée Lauder teams up with NASA to shoot a commercial aboard the International Space Station that will debut its new skincare serum
As private companies move into the spaceship business, NASA is gearing up to film its first commercial ad campaign on the International Space Station.
Up to ten bottles of a new Estée Lauder skincare serum will arrive at the space station later this month.
NASA astronauts are expected to film them in the station's microgravity environment, with the makeup company using footage in advertising campaigns.
The product is a new version of Estée Lauder's Advanced Night Repair skin serum, CNN reports, expected to launch aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft along with 8,000 more pounds of cargo.
Agency policy prohibits astronauts from actually appearing in any ads or endorsing any products.
Up to ten bottles of a new Estée Lauder skincare serum will arrive at the ISS later this month to be filmed by NASA astronauts in the station's microgravity environment. The footage will then be used in ad campaigns and other promo materials
Estée Lauder president Stéphane de la Faverie all but confirmed the plan last month during an online panel at the the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics's virtual Ascend Summit.
'I'm a risk taker, and that tends to basically come with ideas that are a little bit, you know, outside of the normal, traditional ways of doing marketing,' Faverie said. 'We're constantly pushing the boundaries of how to showcase our products.'
Space Commerce Matters will pay NASA $128,000, according to New Scientist, which includes astronaut time at roughly $17,500 an hour.
The Trump administration has made it clear it wants the private sector to start picking up the check for space exploration.
The product is a new version of Estée Lauder's Advanced Night Repair skin serum, expected to launch aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft along with 8,000 more pounds of cargo this month. 'We're constantly pushing the boundaries of how to showcase our products,' said Estée Lauder president Stéphane de la Faverie
NASA announced it was open for business in a June 2019 directive that said it would be using commercial enterprises to 'lay the foundation for America to maintain a constant human presence in low-Earth orbit (LEO).'
'NASA will partner with industry to achieve this commercial economy as the agency moves full speed ahead toward its goal of landing the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024.'
The Esteé Lauder campaign is just one of numerous enterprises slipping the surly bonds of Earth.
NASA is now allocating 5 percent of its annual ISS payload to commercial activities.
This week, a television company announced plans to send the winner of a reality TV competition to the station in 2023.
And NASA has also signed an agreement with Adidas to collaborate on gear that could include astronauts testing clothes and sneakers on the ISS.
In May NASA confirmed it was working with Tom Cruise on shooting a movie on the station.
But will all this business to conduct will astronauts still have time for, you know, space exploration?
Todd Humphreys, an aerospace engineer whose experiments have been conducted on the ISS, says makeup, sneakers and Hollywood action heroes 'gets in the way of real science.'
'But if the circus is necessary to maintain the station' he told New Scientist, 'and serious lab work can still be done when the cameras aren't rolling, it's probably a good trade-off.'
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