It’s hard to believe that space exploration needs to be advertised, but with budget cuts and NASA retiring space shuttles, space has become a silly dream not worth pursuing anymore. We went to the moon and Mars is nothing but ice and rock, what more could we do?
Well, the AIA (Aerospace Industries Association, which represents industries that are employed by NASA) is trying new methods to excite the populace, namely crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Their intent is to release a 30 second spot before screenings of Star Trek Into Darkness to promote a documentary narrated by Peter Cullen (the voice of Optimus Prime in the Transformers films ) about the history of NASA in order to promote the space exploration program. After only 5 days, they reached their goal of $33,000, and the spot will be showing in 50 different theaters for eight weeks in major movie markets, namely Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
If you’re despairing not being able to see it in your own movie market (basically, anywhere between the two coasts), there is hope. If they reach their goal of $94,000 it will be released in all theaters across the nation. Here’s the full promo video for We are the Explorers which will be edited down to 30 seconds for theaters:
The purpose of the endeavor is presumably to piggyback on the popularity of the Star Trek reboot in order to encourage interest in the documentary, which would lead to interest in the industry.
“Now is the time to reach them,” states the AIA proposal, “to remind them that an inspiring space program awaits, one that is worthy of their ambition.”
Seems like this may be the right way to go about. After all, the highest rated comment on the YouTube promo was by Mofoe2001 who stated:
If Optimus says we must go. WE HAVE TO GO.
I think most science fiction fans will agree.
