Keep Your Slurm Ads Out of Our Orbit!
The omnipresent regulatory hand of the Federal Government has decided to reach out into space.
The Federal Aviation Administration proposed Thursday to amend its regulations to ensure that it can enforce a law that prohibits “obtrusive” advertising in zero gravity.
“Objects placed in orbit, if large enough, could be seen by people around the world for long periods of time,” the FAA said in a regulatory filing.
Currently, the FAA lacks the authority to enforce the existing law.
That last paragraph is good news, at least.
I hate when the government decides that it knows what’s good for us, before it even asks. It may well be, as the FAA contends, that large billboards in low earth orbit may well prevent astronomers from doing their work. I can imagine other ways of handling that issue, though, aside from a blanket ban on “obstrusive” (a definition that, I assure you, will be wide open to interpretation and reinterpretation over the years) advertisements.
This is one place where the government ought to butt out and let us figure out how we’re going to do things on our own.
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Category: General
