China Posts Mail from Outer Space: Oh, Mr. Postman...

Postal services everywhere in the world are floundering financially due to the increasing use of email.

Bob Dylan used to sing about the "times, they were a changing," and not only was he right, but his message has leaked into even those areas all of us never even thought about.

Experts are desperate to save this vital institution. In America, postal services urged corporations to send their junk mail through traditional venues, which they felt would save them from imminent financial collapse.

China's post office system has been severely curtailed by social media and computer services, and for a few years, China's marketing experts have quietly been trying to counteract that sad fact with marketing strategies to both retain existing users and attract new ones.

"New media has dealt a heavy blow to the traditional postal service. The number of people writing letters [has] dropped significantly in recent years... Most letters we handle now are business letters, but even this sector is experiencing a sharp drop," stated Sun Buxin, executive director of the China Space Post Office.

Last year, the post office employed the gimmick of allowing people to send letters in specially designed envelopes that would be delivered in the year 2020. Although this had a limited run, it was successful and highly encouraging.

In an attempt to always adjust and do whatever comes next, the China Space Post Office opened at Beijing Aerospace City on November 3, aboard Tiangong-1, the new orbital complex.

The postmaster is Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut in space.

The space post office has been issued its own zip code and postal seal.

Letters will be printed on special paper and sent into space with customized postmarks aboard the spacecraft. These are slated to sell to collectors via a lottery after returning to Earth.

The space post office is also expected to sell an entire range of collectable stamps highlighting China's many accomplishments in outer space.

No one yet knows the price for the new outer space postal service.

The solution and only hope for the postal system is change.

Bob Dylan, it would appear, was right.

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