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Author
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Topic: Astronaut name tags (colors, designs)
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thump
Member Posts: 578
From: washington dc usa
Registered: May 2004
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posted 09-02-2004 09:53 AM
   
Is there any reason some of the name tags in the below photo are white, and some are yellow? |
Michael Clemente
Member Posts: 214
From: Atco, New Jersey, USA
Registered: Mar 2002
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posted 09-02-2004 04:14 PM
It looks like it is not a white border on their name tags but silver piping. Silver will stand for the Air Force since that is the color of their wings and gold is for the Navy. If you look closely, Chris Cassidy is wearing a Navy Seal emblem in the middle of his patch, where there is usually wings. Maybe it stands for the branch of service they came from. |
nametags
New Member Posts: 8
From:
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 10-05-2004 08:46 PM
That's pretty much right. Gold for the U.S. Navy and silver for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army. Some tags emblems have additional colors in the design, or are not military wings or badges such as mission and payload specialist, mainly the non US astronauts have the more colorful tags (obviously that would be primarily the Russians). I get to make tags for shuttle missions and space station expeditions as a supplier to United Space Alliance. I think it is a pretty cool thing to get to do, even though they are incredibly picky about the detail of the tags. I don't think I made any of the tags in that picture. I know that they have other sources they obtain tags from, and the ones I do are always on royal blue nomex.
As for colors, I have a very specific list of threads to use. I do occasionally mess up and have them sent back, as of yet they have not sent any back after they have been in space flight, but if they do you can imagine that one will go up in the wall. I also got to do nametags for the two newest civilian astronauts which I thought was cool too. |
nametags
New Member Posts: 8
From:
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 10-06-2004 10:13 PM
An interesting bit of info, we had done several tags for Ilan Ramon, over a long period of time, partly because I think the mission was postponed, some were payload specialist (wings with a shuttle top view in the center) but most were Israeli Air Force pilot wings. A couple of weeks before their shuttle mission I was called and asked to do an Israeli astronaut wing which previously did not technically exist (basically just a matter of adding the shooting star over the shield center). I made one with silver wings and gold shooting star for contrast and one with silver wings and shooting star with black outline. I'm pretty sure they decided on the one that had the gold center, but I honestly don't really remember. They only had one made, I think he was going to wear it after he returned and was officially an "astronaut." I have one physical sewn wing sample stuffed my desk drawer, but it is the all silver one. I sometimes wonder if it was ever recovered. There was also a tag done for Soichi Noguchi with a miniaturized version of a patch on it, |
Hart Sastrowardoyo
Member Posts: 3466
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 10-10-2004 12:21 AM
Did you make the name tags for astronauts pre-Challenger? I'm wondering if the foreign payload specialists — including the unflown but named British and Indonesian — ever had ones made like your company did for Ramon. |
nametags
New Member Posts: 8
From:
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 10-10-2004 12:29 PM
No. We have only been doing them since around 2000 and as mentioned, only through United Space Alliance. If you are referring to whether or not they made an astronaut version of their wings, I could not say. I can say that I do not believe they are on my list provided by USA, but I do have Canadian astronaut wings on there, and some designs are not wings so they would not have an "astronaut version." |
nametags
New Member Posts: 8
From:
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 10-11-2004 11:31 AM
I have looked over the list, and there is an Israel Space Agency crest listed.Also, the mission specialist style wings with the vector logo in place of the astronaut logo is listed as the AOD Pilot wing (Aircraft Operations Division?). |
John Charles
Member Posts: 342
From: Houston, Texas, USA
Registered: Jun 2004
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posted 10-23-2004 04:56 PM
Has anyone (Bert Vis, maybe?) tracked and documented the evolution of NASA astronaut name tags over the decades, from the earliest name-on-leather tags to the embroidered wings of the early Shuttle era, up to the multi-symbol name tags of today's STS crews? This seems like a straight-forward but tedious task involving looking at crew portraits. |
p51
Member Posts: 1784
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 04-12-2012 11:27 PM
Looking at the nameplates on the flight suits and jackets of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft crew, note how several of them are wearing gold wings with the NASA insignia in the center (but some are in silver). Until I saw this photo, I assumed this was a made up design because several companies sell this exact wing setup on nameplates.  |
Spaceguy5
Member Posts: 427
From: Pampa, TX, US
Registered: May 2011
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posted 04-13-2012 08:43 AM
All the name plates are made by the same company — Gibson & Barnes, NASA's supplier. In fact, Gibson & Barnes even has that name plate design featured on their website as an example of their cloth nametags.Astronaut Mark Polansky also has a name plate similar to it, although his has a bold white outline around the NASA insignia, and of course, the astronaut office symbol embroidered over it.  |
p51
Member Posts: 1784
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 04-13-2012 09:28 PM
Funny how that patch has the astronaut pin insignia over top of the NASA meatball. I've never seen anything like that before! |
Spaceguy5
Member Posts: 427
From: Pampa, TX, US
Registered: May 2011
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posted 04-13-2012 11:17 PM
If you look closely at crew portraits and other pictures, there's quite a few interesting designs on astronaut's nameplates. Eileen Collins has a really unique one with a graphic of a landing space shuttle flying past a large "disembodied" NASA meatball. The usual astronaut wings (which are silver with a yellow astronaut symbol) are smaller and in the top right corner. Her name is printed in the top left corner. It also has rounded edges. Later she had another unique design with the STS-114 patch on it.  A few other astronauts (For example, Pam Melroy) also have nameplates based off Collins' first tag. In fact, Mike Barrat has one that has an image of a T-38 instead of an orbiter, and what looks like a Caduceus instead of the astronaut office symbol. There are also a few astronauts who have the usual silver nameplate, but with only the astronaut symbol embroidered in yellow. Doug Hurley has a nameplate that's based off the usual yellow design, but with a red background instead of blue. Story Musgrave had one nameplate that didn't have any design on it, just his first name "STORY" in very large capital letters. There's also a few tags that don't have real names on them at all. If you look closely at very high resolution pictures of the middeck on STS-134, there's nameplates saying "SPACEMAN SPIFF" and "RICKY BOBBY" attached to the lockers. I have no idea who goes by Spaceman Spiff, but Ricky Bobby was a nickname that the crew gave to Roberto Vittori. |
Spaceguy5
Member Posts: 427
From: Pampa, TX, US
Registered: May 2011
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posted 04-23-2012 04:50 AM
Interesting. If you look at the high resolution version of the Astronaut Group 16 photo, Laurel Clark is wearing a nameplate with just the NASA insignia and wings, and no astronaut office symbol at all. |
Hart Sastrowardoyo
Member Posts: 3466
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 04-23-2012 09:27 AM
I would think Hurley's red nameplate is an allusion to his background as a Marine colonel.
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p51
Member Posts: 1784
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 07-02-2012 12:30 AM
At The Museum of Flight today, the Super Guppy crew was there and a couple of them answered some questions about nameplates and wings. One of them who is pilot rated on the Guppy said when they're getting fitted for all that stuff, they're shown a board with several different wings designs and they can pick whatever is there. He confirmed that generally, former USAF folks pick the silver wings, lettering and border and the former USN types pick the gold. He confirmed that USMC types will either go the Navy colors or do the red/gold of their branch. He couldn't recall meeting anyone former Army to know what they did. |
Whizzospace
Member Posts: 110
From: San Antonio, TX
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 09-14-2012 02:21 PM
I was always surprised that in Gemini era images, the flight suits simple had simple text names and MSC affiliation, rather than wings. Probably a topic such a motivated group of military pilots were keen to raise to management.The first NASA wings I recall seeing were on Jack Schmitt's gold flight suit, while watching the Apollo 17 recovery. He's seen receiving USAF pilot wings in his graduation ceremony from flight school, since the Air Force ran civilian astronaut flight training back then. And since it's been noted Neil Armstrong only recently received his Naval Aviator Astronaut wings in a 2010 ceremony, did he wear NASA or Navy wings on his flight suit as a NASA civilian? |
BMckay
Member Posts: 4057
From: MA, USA
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted 10-16-2012 03:42 PM
Pam Melroy has a different name tag as well. Any story behind it? |
larry115
New Member Posts: 7
From:
Registered: May 2014
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posted 05-02-2014 11:37 PM
A word about the name tags. Generally, the tags with the rounded corners are made by the Mardon Company in Tucson, Arizona. The name tags with the square corners are made by Gibson & Barnes (or Flight Suits). As to why certain astronauts wear different name tags, I can only conclude that NASA has no regulation on what tag must be worn (at least within wide guidelines), and that is why you see great disparity in what they are wearing. I've always presumed it was up to each astronaut's preference. |
p51
Member Posts: 1784
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 10-27-2016 02:13 PM
quote:
Originally posted by BMckay:
Pam Melroy has a different name tag as well. Any story behind it?
I noticed Hoot Gibson has one similar to that, and he confirmed that he got it made at Ellington.Hoot's in the center in this photo, which at max resolution, you can see what it looks like. I regret not taking a detailed photo of his tag, directly.  He shared a nice story about designing the mission specialist wings that week, too! He said the patch people at Ellington were going to all-embroidered nameplates and they said they needed a wing design for the mission specialists. John Young put it to the new classes of astronauts to come with a design before then, but everyone had their own ideas and nobody wanted to back down. So, years went by with no design. Frustrated and now needing a design right away, Gibson sketched out an astronaut pin design with a surround, onto a backing of Navy wings (note that the finished deign looks more like the USAF wings) and took the sketch to John Young. Young took one look, okayed it, and history was made that day. |
lunareagle
Member Posts: 603
From: Michigan
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 04-05-2019 09:35 AM
I would like details about early astronaut name tags. Material (leather?), Velcro backed. Earliest seem to name astronaut with two initials (H.C.) then last name followed with M.S.C. N.A.S.A.It then looks like wings were added to the same style later. When did the change occur? |
molaire1
Member Posts: 14
From: FRANCE
Registered: Apr 2017
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posted 01-22-2020 09:59 AM
Why is the background red for some astronaut name tag patch? |
astro-nut
Member Posts: 1037
From: Washington, IL
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 01-22-2020 11:11 AM
I have noticed that U.S. Marine Corps astronauts have the red name tags on their blue jumpsuits and spacesuits as well. So red name tags are for the U.S. Marine Corps astronauts. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 51278
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 11-08-2020 02:01 PM
When they arrived at Kennedy Space Center today (Nov. 8), SpaceX Crew-1 mission specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Walker were sporting new Crew-1 Resilience name tags: 
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Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 51278
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-26-2023 01:38 PM
The Artemis II crew was recently seen wearing new matching name tags while Naval Base San Diego to check out the Orion spacecraft mockup they will use to train with NASA and the U.S. Navy for their ocean recovery. The name tags were different from their NASA-issued tags in that they included the initials "WC" and green blue, yellow and red stripes.A NASA public affairs officer provided the background: The helicopter squadron they were with are called the Wildcards – the [Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron] HSC-23 Wildcards made them for the crew, hence WC! The stripes are just what they include on their tags.  |
CollectingPatches
New Member Posts: 5
From: Ohio, United States
Registered: Oct 2023
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posted 10-28-2023 06:25 PM
A while ago, I heard from somewhere that Williams and Williams would produce MS/PS wings if you emailed them asking for them to be produced. I emailed them a few weeks back and they never got back to me. Does anybody know if this is actually accurate? Do they still produce MS/PS wings?These are the “civilian wings,” one of which having the astronaut insignia in the center and the other (PS wing) having the shuttle in the center. Can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacepatches/8557713670/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacepatches/8557713184/ |
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