Over 60 years of spaceflight mission patches

[Free]

After 60 years of spaceflight patches, here are some of our favorites

It turns out the US spy satellite agency is the best of the best at patch design.

arstechnica.com

The art of space mission patches is now more than six decades old, dating to the Vostok 6 mission in 1963 that carried Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova into low-Earth orbit for nearly three days. The patch for the first female human spaceflight showcased a dove flying above the letters designating the Soviet Union, CCCP.

That patch was not publicly revealed at the time, and the use of specially designed patches was employed only infrequently by subsequent Soviet missions. NASA's first mission patch would not follow for two years, but the practice would prove more sticky for missions in the United States and become a time-honored tradition.

The first NASA flight to produce a mission-specific patch worn by crew members was Gemini 5. It flew in August 1965, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad on an eight-day mission inside a small Gemini spacecraft. At the time, it was the longest spaceflight conducted by anyone.

Robert Pearlman has the story behind the patch at Collect Space, which came about because of the wishes of the crew.

Some interesting history there, and some cool patches shown - and some that walk the monstrous side of spaceflight imagery, including patches for missions USA-247/NROL-49 and USA-224/NROL-39. I kind of dig the one for NROL-35:

A purple sorceress wielding fire bolts and a trident - I think Chalice would approve.

 

[Noodles]

Oh geeze, I thought this was going to be some sort of git repo of software patches from NASA.

This is better. And less boring.