Corporate advertising could rise to the heavens under a proposal to bolster cash-strapped US space programs.
The goal would be to gather as much as $US100 million ($A121 million) as prize money to stimulate innovative ideas, said Rep Ken Calvert of California, the top Republican on the House of Representatives' subcommittee on space and aviation.
"By no means do I envision bumper stickers on the Mars Rover or a blinking sign on the International Space Station," he said in an address to the National Space Symposium, an annual space industry conference.
But Congress should weigh a system for "long-term, dedicated and tasteful sponsorships" that could raise cash to reward technological breakthroughs outside the regular congressional budgeting process, he said.
Debate over US spending in space has grown since January 11, when China used a ground-based missile against one of its ageing weather satellites, showing an ability to destroy space-based gear in low-earth orbit.
The Chinese anti-satellite test "made clear that space is not a sanctuary," US Air Force Under Secretary Ronald Sega, the Pentagon's executive agent for space, told reporters.
He said he was open to exploring the possibility of prize money to jump-start space-related innovations, just as the Pentagon has sponsored annual "Grand Challenge" robot races in recent years.
Robert Stevens, chairman and chief executive of Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's biggest supplier, told the session the United States cannot preserve space leadership without sustained investment.
At $US17.3 billion ($A21 billion), NASA's proposed budget for fiscal 2008 is "significantly less than annual sales of candy and gum," Stevens said.
"You could double NASA's budget, and it would still only cost each American about 32 cents a day."
The United States relies on satellites for advanced military and intelligence tasks as well as for everything from automatic teller machines to high-speed communications and precision navigation for drivers, boaters and hikers.
Spending on the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, which runs human spaceflight initiatives, accounts for less than half of US spending on space programs.
"The stakes remain great ... and the world is still an unpredictable place, whether we're talking about efforts to jam or disable or interrupt our current systems or get new missiles into space or kill a satellite," Stevens said.
Last year, NASA was funded at about $US500 million less than requested by President Bush and at about $US1.6 billion less than Congress authorised in the budgeting process, Calvert said in recommending the turn to advertising.
He said that perhaps the next step should be the creation of an advertising system similar to those used by the Professional Golf Association, National Public Radio or Smithsonian Institution.
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