The space billboard that nearly happened

The space billboard that nearly happened

In 1993, Mike Lawson, an aerospace entrepreneur based in Roswell, Georgia, unveiled his vision for a brave new future of advertising: space billboards.  This wasn’t a half-baked scheme: Lawson had meticulous plans for a proposed 1996 launch: His team of engineers would shoot a package of tightly-wound mylar into orbit about 180 miles above the Earth. Once there, the material would unfurl into a thin, reflective sheet up to a mile long and a quar…