喵星人的一小步：Hello Kitty被日本科学家送入太空

为了纪念品牌创立四十周年，日本政府将Hello Kitty送入太空。日本政府希望以此为噱头吸引私人企业进驻航天商业领域。

这只头戴红色蝴蝶结的白色小猫坐在卫星的窗边俯视地球，同时它上方的电子屏播放着来自英国和日本的180多位粉丝的留言。

Hello Kitty has been blasted into space as Japan's government bid to mark the brand's 40th birthday.

The move is part of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to promote the country's high-tech industry and engineer economic growth.

He wants to combine the Hello Kitty figure with a mini satellite sent up to orbit the Earth and equipped with a digital message board.

The government is hoping to attract private companies into the air space business with the stunt.

The initiative calls on fans to come up with short messages that will be flashed on the board sitting above the four-centimetre cat, according to Kitty's creator Sanrio.

The white feline with a red bow sits by a window looking back at Earth, with the board displaying messages of up to 180 characters in English and Japanese.

"It can be a message that you want to send from space to someone special on Earth, or it can be something more general," a spokesman for Tokyo-based Sanrio said when they unveiled the initiative.