A special 1kg can of Pocari Sweat by Otsuka Pharmaceuticual will also be the first soft drink litter left on the moon.
In October 2015, soft drink manufacturer, Pocari, will send a 1kg titanium capsule shaped like its Pocari Sweat from Cape Canaveral in Florida to the moon. The can will also contain special disks containing messages. The handwritten messages will be gathered from Asian school children and be stores as data in 120 titanium plates in the capsules. The messages will contain the children’s dreams.
Children who submit their messages to the company will also be given a dream ring – a special ring pull that opens up the can. Otsukas stated that it hopes this will inspire the young people to become astronauts and travel back to the Moon to one day re-read their dreams. Do not forget, though, that this is an ad stunt for the brand, a soft drink similar to Gatorade that has been available in Japan since 1980 and is now available in 17 countries and regions throughout the world. The campaign motto is, “Dreams are always close at hand.”
In the countdown to the launch, the capsule will travel the country to various schools to collect messages. Children who don’t get a chance to see the capsule in person will also be able to include their dreams through a dedicated site. The campaign will also include an app that will enable users to send “virtual messages” to the moon. A message entered into the Dream Messenger via the project website can be sent by aiming a smartphone towards it only during a moonlit night.
To endure the harsh environment of the moon where the temperature shifts from minus 170℃ at night to 110℃ during the day, the capsule was developed specifically for this project.
The can will launch on a Falcon 9, designed to be a potentially reusable means of space travel by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Falcon 9 has already made three successful supply runs to the International Space Station. The planned mission in October 2015 will be the first privately-launched lander on the moon.
After the Falcon 9 rocket has ignited its second-stage boosters and completed a four-and-a-half day journey to the moon, the Pocari Sweat-branded canister will be deposited on the surface by private Pittsburgh company, Astrobotic Technology’s, Griffin lander. Otsuka Pharmaceutical is developing the lander to try and win Google’s US$20-million prize launched in 2007 for the first company to land a device on the moon that can both travel 500 metres on the surface and transmit high-definition pictures back to Earth.
Ironically given that the capsule will become moon trash, Astrobotic’s is mainly interested in developing technologies designed to clean up debris in space.
Credits:
Organisers: LUNAR DREAM executive committee – selected from members of Otsuka Pharmaceutical, ASTROSCALE Singapore & Astrobotic Technology USA
Supporters: University of Tokyo – Nakasuka・Funase Laboratory, Hanada Laboratory at the Kyushu University, Kyushu Institute of Technology, and other Japanese private small/medium corporates
Pocari Sweat began active involvement in the space industry more than a decade ago, shooting the first Space TV commercial in the International Space Station in 2001.
