Possible sponsors here:

http://www.blackcatfireworks.ltd.uk/

Calvert's embroiled in a money scandal. Seems only natural that he'd come up with another way to get kickbacks.

http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/calvert.php

And who, pray, do they believe will see these adverts? The mind boggles; it really does!

Reminds me of this joke from a few years ago. Well, at least it was a joke THEN:

http://www.fugly.com/pictures/1752/nasa.html

I saw something about this in a marketing newsletter and blog which I receive for some odd reason.

http://jaystandish.blogspot.com/2007/04/marketings-next-frontier.html

and a follow-up at

http://jaystandish.blogspot.com/2007/04/mother-nature-taking-over-is-your.html

I'm not sure about the Rock DJ reference, but I'm ready to send my trash to the moon!

Morton Thiokol could advertise their o-rings.

I just had a horrible inner vision of the next condom adverts.

Paint has weight. The paint to slather an advertisement big enough to be worthwhile while it's sitting on the launch pad would have to weigh at least 5lbs - and even then, the only people that would see it legibly are prettymuch watching the launch on TV, and are only going to see the 45 seconds before the launch, whereupon it becomes VERY difficult to see any sort of symbology on the shuttle. Look at the going rate for putting science materials on a space flight - it costs a HELL OF A LOT MORE to put 1lb of experiment into space than any advertiser is going to be willing to pay for 45 seconds of TV time to an audience consisting primarily of geeks, who are notoriously unmoved by advertising anyway.