Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a Cup Noodle. In space.

Space exploration costs a bomb, and the race is on to find a way to make it pay. Space tourism is years away, so the next best thing is ... advertising! In other words, putting noodles in space. Nissin Food Products Co, the makers of Cup Noodle (the Japanese equivalent of the Pot Noodle) have just released their latest ad as part of the No Border campaign. Filmed on a Russian space station, a cosmonaut adds hot water to a vacuum pouch of noodles, and enjoys his tasty snack while the earth spins silently thousands of miles away.

It's a strangely gratifying ad, and you don't even need to speak Japanese to enjoy it. It's all the more nifty because Cup/Pot noodles are not an obvious food to eat in zero gravity. Nissin are clearly aware of the potential dangers of the floating noodle, because they have developed the product you actually see in the ad - the 'Space Ram' - vacuum packed ramen noodles designed for homesick Japanese astronauts. In fact, their ad is particularly clever as it serves to make you think that eating the noodles out of a cup rather than a sachet is actually pretty convenient...

To justify the expense of sending the camera and the noodles up to the space station, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will be leaving the camera up in space and are hoping to film more ads up there in future. It's all part of a larger plan to develop commercial spin-offs to its space program. So expect to see body lotion in space, breakfast cereal in space, and maybe even washing-up liquid in space. I'm sure they'll even find a way to advertise cars in space too...

Click on the picture above to watch the ad. Or go here

Read more about Space Noodles on MSNBC here, or read more about JAXA here.