/ Xeni Jardin / 1:11 pm Mon Apr 4, 2011

Vintage NASA mission patches: LIFE photo gallery

nasa_patch3.jpg

Space shuttle 'Endeavour' is scheduled to make its final flight on April 29; with this end of an era in mind, LIFE.com has published an image gallery that looks back at a "small but central element shared for decades by NASA missions: the patches worn on astronauts' flight suits."

Often designed by crew members themselves; ranging from sleek and futuristic to florid, whimsical, beautiful, and downright homey; occasionally quite moving, the patches serve as emblems of each unique NASA adventure -- personalized tokens of the human drive to confront and understand the unknown.
View the full gallery here. LIFE.com Deputy Editor Ben Cosgrove says, "I admit, the little apple beside teacher Christa McAuliffe's name on the 'Challenger' patch kind of got to me.

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  1. The Apollo XII is wonderfully tacky. It looks like a cover from any random 1970/80s young-adult sci-fi book.

  2. When I was a kid in the 70’s, I used to write all of the various NASA facilities and ask them to “please send me any information you have on your rockets and space-craft.” Sometimes it would take a little while, but in return I’d always receive envelopes stuffed with bunches of their PR material — glossy pictures of the astronauts, artist’s drawings of satellites, etc.

    I wonder if the NASA of today still has someone in charge of sending cool stuff to kids? It would be cool to think so, but I imagine that position may have been a victim of the Internet….

    1. Those materials still exist. A friend of mine works at NASA and when he visits every winter will bring along all the promo material released that year. So there is still promo stuff, though I don’t know if kids still ask for it via mail.

      My friend also gives me a batch of missions patches (which I have paid for in advance). At this point I’m backtracking and hope to have every one ever released (it will cost, but it is going to be so worth it).

  4. I have that shuttle patch on my first denim jacket, along with an Apollo XI patch – I was born a few hours before XI lifted off, and I’ve always been a big space geek.

    1. That’s not an actual mission patch. There are all sorts of patches and logos for various programs and cargo, but only the mission patches wind up on the flight suits.

    2. my favorite non-mission patch is probably the “Mach 25” patch that shuttle veterans wear on their jackets.

  6. I don’t know that I’ve ever said this – for any article, on BoingBoing or otherwise: thank you for posting this.

  7. These are awesome. I collected NASA mission patches as a kid.

    I have the Challenger patch. It has extra special meaning for me, because when I saw news of the disaster, I was sitting in the waiting room for the ICU, where my brother was on life support. A doubly bad day.

  8. The other cool thing about the NASA patch artists (Professional and otherwise) is they always give a shout-out to astronauts of other nationalities besides the Americans – either a flag next to the name, or a color scheme (Fuselgang, I think it was, was a Swedish ESA astronaut, and the patches have a lot of blue and yellow). Even Andrew Thomas, a naturalized Australian, got a nice shout-out in the patch for his first flight STS-77, where they included the Southern Cross in the background.

  9. Hey! I bought that Skylab patch at a swap meet! It’s gorgeous. Anyone looking for patches (ebay) should make sure to do your shopping. There are many different patchmaking companies, so there’s a bit of variation in quality. Here is some info and photos of the various Apollo XII patches. I think the best ones are the Lion Brothers patches, which have hidden “easter egg” hallmarks in the stitching. The Apollo XII has a tiny 12 in the ship’s contrail.

  10. Oh, awww . . .

    I’m getting a sad memory attack.

    My uncle, who passed away last fall, was an airplane salesman who had all sorts of aerospace industry connections. He got me about a dozen of Apollo mission badges back in the day, which I was an eager little space program fan.

    I still have them, carefully wrapped in waxed paper.

  12. Pardon the blatant IHNTABut, my uncle was on that Skylab mission (Kerwin)! First MD in space. So nice to see that patch which is an image I grew up with all over the house.

  13. Looks like the same level of design skill went into those as did into the logo that they dropped, then picked back up again (i.e. the current one).

    Science guys just don’t get design (and I don’t mean aesthetics, I mean design).

  14. Some are beautiful (my favorite is Apollo 8, which combines the lunar mission profile, the number “8” and the shape of the command module in a perfect, economical layout) – but some are so busy as to almost hurt the eyes.

  15. Going through my father’s things recently, I came across a collection of original patches and other memorabilia, with signed notes of thanks from early shuttle crews. He was an engineer who worked on the shuttle program for many years.

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