Is Iceland Better Than Outer Space?

Visit Iceland recently launched a new campaign called “Mission Iceland” that riffs off all the outer-space movies and television shows that have filmed there in recent years.

Called “Iceland. Better Than Space,” the campaign revolves around billboards and a clever video starring a faux astronaut clad in a full moon suit asking would someone spend millions of dollars on a 15-minute space flight when you’ve got Martian landscapes and alien light forms (a.k.a. the Aurora Borealis) in Iceland.

“Enjoy food that’s fresh. Not freeze dried,” says Icelandic actor Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson, who portrays the astronaut. “In many ways, Iceland is a lot like Mars . . .  if Mars had hot tubs. So space tourists, you could keep waiting for a trip to an endless void, or you could just come to Iceland.”

While the campaign is ostensibly aimed at gazillionaires who can afford to book a passage with the Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk rocket ship companies, it’s really a super witty way to get anyone and everyone to visit Iceland.

NPR showed the video to experts at NASA and asked them to comment on the comparison.

“Iceland is an amazing analog for both the Moon and Mars,” said researcher Kelsey Young, who studies planetary surfaces to prepare NASA for future (real life) space missions. “One [former] astronaut, after returning from his trip to the lunar surface, reported that Iceland was the most lunar-like of the field sites he visited during training.”

The offbeat promotion also helped Iceland launch its own space program. Sort of. A weather balloon carried an electronic tablet featuring the video into the stratosphere above the island, where it floated for several ours before coming back down to Earth.

Check out the “Mission Iceland” video below. And undertake your own exploration of the lunar landscape island with Iceland ProCruises.

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