I haven't said anything about Representative Calvert's proposal to allow NASA to accept ads on its hardware to raise money for prizes, but there's a good discussion of it at Space Politics. I have to say that I agree with "anonymous"'s take on it:

At this very early stage of market development, the pool of private sector dollars for any space advertising and sponsorship is going to be extremely limited. And unlike, say, a more mature market like NASCAR racing, space activities simply don’t garner the same repeated exposure and massive number of eyeballs. There’s nothing in the proposal — and I don’t think anything could be put in the proposal — that would prevent NASA from competing for those very limited sponsorship dollars with the very non-profits that manage its prize competitions and with the very teams that compete in those prize competitions (e.g., Armadillo Aerospace has a commercial sponsor for the Lunar Lunar Challenge). And NASA would probably win those sponsorship dollars over the private sector every time. If business has a choice between slapping a logo on Pixel/Texel or the Space Station, they’ll pick the Space Station every time. The managers of NASA’s prize program demonstrated quite a bit of creativity bringing together a highly efficient (especially when compared to other government prizes like the DARPA Grand Challenge) and competitive universe of privately funded non-profits, privately funded teams, and corporate sponsors on very small, shoestring budget. Instead of fueling and enlarging that proven but still fragile engine of innovation, this proposal would choke off the very private sector sponsorship necessary to sustain it.

...I have to say that this is yet another example of Congress not doing its governance job with respect to NASA. Instead of dealing with any of NASA’s real problems — ranging from a Ares 1/Orion system that’s not closing technically, to a budgetarily and politically unsustainable strategy for human space exploration, to a Shuttle workforce that’s not ramping down as it should, to major across-the-board cutbacks in science and aeronautics, to even something as easily achievable as directing a few bucks to a working prize program — Republicans like Calvert are wasting their time on conservative think-tank pet projects and Democrats like Nelson are wasting their time persecuting potty-mouthed IGs. Enough with the crap — start governing already.

I read the full speech (PDF warning - 8 pages of text) as linked by rlvnews and it's simply awful.

There's nothing remotely think-tank about it, it doesn't seem to contain any clear-headed thinking at all actually.

Can you see the launch tanks with YAHOO! or Google plastered on the side?

Like NASCAR? NASTAR? The restrictor plates will be a hoot.

Remember "The Last Action Hero"?

There was a big big hype about such a tie-in. This rocket being launched from Wallops Island would have a "Last Action Hero" ad on it. There was a contest and some lucky kid would win a trip to Wallops Island to launch the rocket with Arnold.

Then the launch was delayed and the movie flopped. Never did hear what they did instead.

Can you see the launch tanks with YAHOO! or Google plastered on the side?

Not Google, they don't advertise anywhere. But I'm sure that they'll be happy to offer them great rates for auctioning the ad space.

How about Trojan Condoms.

"We've got you covered when you've got a big load to shoot off -- into space, you filty minded whores."