Miracle Day

NASA is taking the next small step in its efforts to promote commercialization of low Earth orbit by flying a cosmetics company’s product to the International Space Station.

Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft was billed to launch to the International Space Station, Sept. 29 and its cargo would include 10 bottles of a face cream by Estée Lauder. The bottles will be photographed in the cupola of the station, with the Earth as a backdrop, and the company will use the images in social media campaigns.

One may wonder why The Estée Lauder cosmetic company is partnering up with NASA, the reason for that is because the president of the Estée Lauder company says that they are “always looking for innovation breakthroughs”.

The company is “incredibly inspired by the work NASA is doing to push the boundaries of space exploration, and we saw a lot of synergy between both our brands’ which is committed to science and innovation” stated an official of Estée Lauder Cosmetic Company.

Partnering up with NASA helps them to campaign their brands even more and it will help the company to bring in more money and part of that initiative, announced in June 2019, reserves 5% of NASA ISS resources for use on commercial projects, like this one.

“In order for those destinations to be sustainable,” Estée Lauder said of commercial space stations, “they’re going to need customers other than NASA to support their operation.

“This Estée Lauder payload is one part of NASA’s overall strategy to help make that transition and to help commercial LEO development,” stated Estée Lauder further stated. Therefore, McAlister said that the proposal from Estée Lauder was reviewed by NASA officials to determine if it met the criteria for being flown on the ISS as part of the LEO commercialization initiative. He said the proposal met the requirement to “support the development of a sustainable LEO economy” and thus deemed eligible to fly.

That Estée Lauder is a nontraditional user of the station is a benefit in NASA’s view. “We need many businesses thinking of unique and innovative ways to expand economic activity in space,” stated NASA president. “We also think there’s value from a large, well-known company, such as Estée Lauder, being among the first companies taking advantage of our commercial use policy.”

Furthermore, with NASA and Estée Lauder cosmetic company teaming up with each other, this gives both of them more exposure and helps to bring more companies into NASA which may want to use them to help with launching their products and with people wanting to understand how they can use NASA to help them get better exposure for their business.

NASA gets benefits for exposure to space and people can see how space can help with their business. Knowledge of space can be more beneficial to the world.