This
is not Osaka-based Nissin's first encounter with the final frontier. In 2002, it
announced plans to make "Space Ram," a ramen noodle that
homesick Japanese astronauts
can eat in zero gravity. NASA must be ‘Skint’
After been bombarded with NASAs plan to return to the moon sometime in the next god knows how many years, with what will then be 50 year old technology, my suspissions have been confirmed that this is nothing more than a ‘crying the poor tale’ approach to guarantee the funding of zillions more tax payers dollars to the space agency who have a nasty habbit of loosing things that cost millions and just have to account for their losses with ‘Gee Shucks we lost it’ alongside the minus column in its expenditure ledger.
The wonderful and special environment of the Space Station is going to be used not for some unique opportunity experiment but it is being used for profit I’m sure but to no real scientific cause, (I think that is what the tax payers are funding) by letting a Chinese, clappy noodle company film an advert on the facility.
Can you imaging the ghosts of the former US regimes turning in their graves, Reds under the bed and all that. I know those halcyon days have gone and for the better but really should the tax payers have to fund this absolute waste of time and resource, when a simple blue screen production could have done the job.
Or as I truly suspect does this mean we will see more of this usage of the space station simply to get funds to keep it up there?
Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut.
The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
Space Films, a venture business set up by JAXA that specializes in space images, will send a high-definition camera to the space station aboard a Russian rocket launch Oct. 1 and direct the filming from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow.
The project is part of Japan's push to develop commercial spin-offs to its space program. JAXA did not say how much the commercial would cost, but the agency will be leaving the camera at the space station in the hope of shooting more advertisements.
This
is not Osaka-based Nissin's first encounter with the final frontier. In 2002, it
announced plans to make "Space Ram," a ramen noodle that
homesick Japanese astronauts
can eat in zero gravity.
Nissin - which incidentally also makes U.F.O. brand instant noodles - is credited with revolutionizing the world's eating habits when chairman Momofuku Ando invented the instant noodle in 1958.
The company is now the world's biggest maker of the instant noodles, selling 20 billion packs a year. Japan wolfed down 5.4 billion of those in 2003, or about 42 packs for every man, woman and child.
JAXA expects high demand for its remote-controlled space camera from companies looking for extraterrestrial publicity and from educators and broadcasters looking for unique pictures of outer space or shots of Earth.