2 ms·

Some media company (Google, Alibaba?) might fill up the sunny side of the Moon with a grid of photovoltaic cells 1 kilometer apart, then charge money to flash a

• logfromblammo 12y ago
  You would also need batteries that can charge for two weeks of lunar day, and then last for the two weeks of lunar night. And you would need at least 15 million of them at that scale. If you could squash each unit down to just 1 kg and reduce your cost to only $1M per kg to the lunar surface, the whole project would only cost $15 trillion, which is only about a sixth of the entire global economy. It would probably be cheaper to erect a giant space-screen that selectively redirects incident sunlight through optical fibers in a nearer Earth orbit. Rather than turn the Moon into a billboard, build an orbiting billboard that is the same apparent size as the Moon. Or bigger. Really spoil the view.
  • vorg 12y ago
    Batteries on the moon could be used incrementally, sending only 100 up at first in a 10 x 10 grid, and flashing back crude pictures or ideograms, even basic movies of McDonalds burgers, so there's free cash flow early on. An orbiting billboard, however, needs to be built all at once before it's useful, so it's a bigger upfront investment. Moon batteries can also be placed strategically to blend in with the topographical features already there, so instead of a Man in the Moon, we see a Man in the Moon drinking a can of Coke.