London

Already faced with cost overruns and technical delays, officials overseeing the building of the International Space Station (ISS) are scratching their heads over a new problem — determining its 'values'. Desperate to boost funds for the project, the European and Canadian space agencies have enlisted the help of a public-relations company to develop a “branding and communications strategy” for the cash-strapped station.

“In the past, human spaceflight has wrongly retained an exotic and élitist image. With the ISS this is changing,” explains Jörg Feustel-Büechl, director of manned spaceflight and microgravity at the European Space Agency (ESA). “The station offers companies and organizations the opportunity, for the first time, to exploit manned spaceflight for commercial purposes.”

As well as focusing on the research and development community — many of whom, ESA says, are unaware of the station's potential — the agency is also targeting what it calls “newer kinds of space entrepreneurs” involved in marketing, entertainment and tourism.

Still, those looking at the station are unlikely to see a cola advert painted onto its side, says Nicholas Lunt, business development director with Ogilvy Public Relations, the Brussels-based firm hired by ESA. “If you view this solely as painting logos on pieces of hardware then that misses the point of what sponsors are looking for,” Lunt says. “We cannot pretend in any way that this is a Formula One car.”

The firm — which Lunt says is a “360-degree communications agency” — has signed a one-year deal to determine the brand position of the ISS, and to develop a communications strategy to put it into the public eye and raise its profile among the business community. “And we can't do that until we've identified the values of the station,” he says.