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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama.
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M O S T C E N S O R E D - - - - - - - - BETHPAGE, NY - When Pizza Hut announced it was placing a 30-foot logo on the unmanned Proton rocket launching the International Space Station's living quarters in front of 500 million viewers, a cheer went up at Applied Space Resources, a Long Island company leaving room for product logos on a spacecraft that will actually land on the Moon. "Logo placement, sponsorship and tie-in opportunities are integral to the business model we are using for our Lunar Retriever lunar sample return mission," says ASR Director of Strategic Planning Alonzo Fyfe. "By approaching the mission as a major edutainment event, we will be able to fund new science using the consumer market and provide a significant return to investors in our first mission. We foresaw such a promotion, and I'd like to thank Pizza Hut for demonstrating the attractiveness of real space branding." ASR's robotic spacecraft, Lunar Retriever I, is scheduled for launch in 2002. It will gather over 10 kilograms of rock and soil from the Moon's Mare Nectaris-the first new lunar samples returned to Earth in over a quarter century. A "Lunar Ejectacam" will stream live video of the spacecraft's operations on the surface of the Moon, not only for the 140 million Americans who have never seen live footage from the Moon but for an estimated billion more viewers worldwide. The opportunity to have logos prominently visible in those live lunar broadcasts and webcasts is what the company expects to help make this commercial mission profitable. ASR will make part of the returned sample available to researchers cheap or even free; the balance will be available for incorporation into collectibles that will allow individuals to own their own piece of the Moon for the very first time. "Space has a romance, space evokes a fascination, like nothing else," says ASR CEO Denise Norris. "The opportunity to actually touch space is what helped make James Irwin's Apollo 15 NASA name patch, smudged with moon dust, sell for over $300,000 at a recent Christie's auction. As part of the mission. we'll bring back a significant amount of the same lunar soil for sale in the commercial market. And, we'll place logos on a spacecraft that actually lands on the Moon. Starting at about half of the estimated cost of the Pizza Hut ad, companies can have their logos broadcast to the world...from the surface of the Moon." ASR is currently in discussions with researchers about flying scientific payloads on the mission, and has promoted discussion of a celestial property rights policy affecting the emerging commercial space exploration and development industry. Pizza Hut, a division of Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., (NYSE: YUM) is planning to place a new corporate logo on a proton rocket that will launch the permanent living capsule of the International Space Station. Applied Space Resources is developing the world's first commercial lunar mission. The Lunar Retriever spacecraft will land at Mare Nectaris, an unexplored region of the Moon, and collect the first lunar samples for return to the Earth in over a quarter century. ASR will ensure mission profitability and promote awareness of the commercial potential of space by making part of the sample available to consumers and creating other mission-related commercial opportunities. Additional information on the company, its lunar mission and various papers is available at http://www.appliedspace.com. High resolution images suitable for publication are available at http://www.appliedspace.com/photos/index.html. Please call 516-579-1249 with any issues downloading the photos. For additional information contact:
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