You know those airplanes with a banner at the beach?

I can imagine a constellation of satellites writing ads (live) in space using mirrors and other nifty tech.

Unless regulation stops it.

> Unless regulation stops it.

Or a ground-based megawatt IR laser with steerable optics.

There was a Russian start up planning to do this a few years back. They had actually reached a deal with Pepsi’s Russian operations until the public backlash convinced them to find a different public relations strategy. https://phys.org/news/2019-01-astronomers-russian-billboards...

That’s so true. I can see it too. The technology to make that must be super fun to work on but please I hope this will never happen. Can you imagine turning the whole sky as a giant pixelated screen to constantly show us ads? That’s as dystopian as it gets. Add to that the probable less than secure software to run it and hackers trying to show stuff up there. That’s something out of a Douglas Adams book. xD

I don't think such a thing could hold together very long, unless it was just a string in a line. Maybe in Morse code?

With multiple launches you could probably get several parallel strings, and use it like a dot matrix printer. It would be a heck of a stunt. But I wouldn't expect it to last for more than one orbit, and only part of the planet could see it.