Pizza Hut Once Tried To Get Its Logo On The Moon
The Pizza Hut logo might be a familiar sight in many hometowns across the globe, but there could have been a reality where we could see that logo in one more place: the moon's surface. Back in the '90s, Pizza Hut was dreaming bigger than a billboard when it came to advertising.
A New York Times article published in October 1999 detailed the pizza chain's plans to put its logo on the side of a Russian rocket destined for the International Space Station. At first, the company planned to use the rocket launch as the kickoff for its space-themed marketing campaign, and the plan was to use footage of the launch in commercials. While it doesn't look like that panned out, having the logo printed on the side of a rocket was undoubtedly a great marketing endeavor in itself.
Though the rocket spaceship's ambitious marketing ploy was costly, roughly around $1.25 million, it wasn't the chain's first space-themed idea.
The logo could have laid among the craters
According to Pizza Hut's then-chief executive, Mike Rawlings, the original plan was to laser etch the Pizza Hut logo onto the moon. The chain worked alongside physicists and astronomers to determine how large the etching would need to be in order to be seen from Earth. Eventually, they concluded that the logo would need to be the size of Texas.
This procedure would have cost the pizza chain hundreds of millions of dollars in order to achieve a design of that size. So, instead, the chain abandoned the idea entirely and opted for a more affordable option in the form of the Russian rocket.
The rocket, which carried the ISS's living quarters, launched in July 2000 in Kazakhstan, with the Pizza Hut logo emblazoned on the side of the rocket. The following year, the pizza chain took it one step further, sending a pizza to be eaten in space.
The chain's pizza made it up to space
In a video from May 2001, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachov ate a Pizza Hut pizza in space. The pizza can be seen floating out of the oven, and Usachov remarked that it was "warm" while being careful not to hold it too much as he floated over to a table with it, as per the YouTube clip. Once out of the oven, Usachov sliced the pizza and took a bite, allowing the rest of the pizza to float in front of him.
Since the standard pepperoni wouldn't have held up on the trip from Earth into space, the pizza topping was swapped out for some salami. Additionally, NASA reports that taste buds seem less effective in space, so extra salt and spices were added to ensure the best-tasting pizza in space.
While you may not be able to look up at night and see the Pizza Hut logo in the sky, with over 19,000 restaurants worldwide, chances are you can catch a glimpse of that familiar red roof in your hometown any time.