With a goal of landing a spacecraft on the Moon by 2020, Ispace Inc., has raised $90 million to send one into lunar orbit by 2019. The Tokyo-based company is looking to connect human beings to space through a project where they will use exploration to provides corporation with advertising opportunities with logo displays on spacecrafts and future lunar structures.

According to Ispace, a “projection mapping service” could be possible if the landing is successful. The service would an place an advertising billboard on the Moon. “Human beings aren’t heading to the stars to become poor,” Takeshi Hakamada, chief executive officer of Ispace, said at a press event in Tokyo. “That’s why it’s crucial to create an economy in outer space.”

According to the startup, the success of this project will lead to a strain on developing images with different companies logos visible alongside images of Earth, for the sake of marketing. Existing companies have already made effort toward space exploration including Space Exploration Technologies Corp., by Elon Musk and Planetary Resources. A focus for these companies is also providing their shareholders with a return on their investment. According Ispace, a full-fledged lunar economy is not on the immediate horizon, but rather decades away.

(Picture courtesy: Ispace)