In space, no one can hear you scheme.

...or perhaps they can...

What do Radio Shack, Popular Mechanics, LEGO and Pizza Hut all have in common?

Well, via a brilliant move through the Russian arm of Space Station Alpha, they're the first four companies to exploit, err... take advantage of the commercial opportunities of shooting television ads in outer space.

"Lights... Camera... ASTEROID!!!"

So unless you're a space case, you wanna read more...

Check out the extensive story at Space.com, complete with footage and pix of our Russian comrades apitchin' aplenty.

Capitalism score thus far:
Russia: 4
NASA: nada

If you haven't seen it yet, a heart-tugging commercial will be popping up on your television soon.


Look for visiting Russian cosmonauts to float through a spacecraft hatch with a Radio Shack shopping bag, delivering a Father's Day gift to International Space Station (ISS) commander Yuri Usachev.


Surprised, the station skipper opens the bag and finds a talking picture frame with a photo of his 12-year-old daughter, Evgenia. The frame then plays a 10-second message recorded at her parent's apartment in Star City, Russia: "Hey Dad, we are wishing you good fortune and success in your job and good relationships with the crew."


Beaming, Usachev gives a "high-five" to cosmonaut colleague Talgat Musabayev

"Then he puts the picture frame on the bulkhead next to his sleeping bag and the camera pans out to look at the blue Earth below," said David Gump, president of LunaCorp, a Fairfax, Virginia company that helped pull off the first TV commercial filmed aboard the new frontier outpost.


"It's pretty cool."