A Japanese sports drink company has invested heavily to send a can of its product to the moon in late 2016, in hopes of making a future ad with an astronaut drinking it, GlobalPost reports.
Pocari Sweat’s parent company, Otsuka, has paid Space X to carry a can of Pocari Sweat on its moon rover and plant it near a giant crater named Bürg. Astrobotic, which designed the rover, told GlobalPost that its major funding for rover missions will not be drawn from ads, but that it anticipates “numerous opportunities for marketing on the moon from corporate sponsorship, educational and inspirational marketing opportunities.”
Astrobotic would not reveal how much Pocari Sweat paid for the privilege of transporting the can, which will be filled with powder, but the firm asks up to $1.2 million per kilo for objects taken to the moon.
In order for the can’s powder to be changed to liquid, scientists have to discover how to extract oxygen from the moon’s surface, combine it with hydrogen, and produce water to add to the powder. NASA plans to achieve this by 2018.
The can will also contain messages from Asian children.
In 1997, a Russian space station was the site of an Israeli dairy company’s commercial. In 2001, the International Space Station received pizzas from Pizza Hut.