posted 12-04-2015 11:04 AM               

Covering the period from the beginning of the Cold War to the installation of the International Space Station, this book documents a rare collection: almost 250 mission patches worn by Soviet and Russian cosmonauts since 1963.

Alexander Glushko, one of the leading specialists in the history of manned space flight and rocket technology in Russia, presents numerous emblems with individual explanations in their applied context: as patches worn on spacesuits. The collection not only comprises partially forgotten mission patches, but also includes rare photo graphs of spacecraft crews and space stations. As well as providing additional historical information, the collection also retraces the formation and development of Soviet and Russian symbolism in terms of space travel and brings the history of cosmic heraldry to life.

• Paperback: 192 pages
  
• DOM Publishers (April 1, 2016)
  
• ISBN-10: 3869223286
  
• ISBN-13: 978-3869223285

posted 03-30-2016 08:21 AM               

What surprises me, is that it seems to be in large part a catalogue of my own collection: most of the photos (actually scans) of patches seen in the page previews, have been copied from my Flickr-account.

posted 05-03-2016 06:29 AM               

If I had spent just a couple of hours with the draft version, I could have helped Alexander a great deal. I am sure he knew where to find me, because he managed to find (and use) a lot of photos of patches I have scanned from my own collection and have on my Flickr website. (Even though he is very generous with credits, Spacepatches.nl is not mentioned anywhere in the book).

As a general overview of Soviet and Russian patches, the book does do a good job. As a history of Soviet and Russian space patches, even for a "first attempt" as stated by Alexander in the introduction, it falls short. There are simply too many unanswered questions. The information about ,,formation and development of Soviet and Russian symbolism'' is nowhere to be found.

As a reference for serious collectors, which I hoped it could be (and I do realize it was never meant to be such), I think it is not very usable, mainly because official and souvenir versions seem to have been randomly mixed up.

Over the coming days, I will compile a list of remarks about the book and post it here. This is absolutely not meant to judge Alexander or put his work in a bad light (I also have positive remarks!), but just to put the record straight for future collectors and historians, who will surely land on this book. (Maybe someone can do the same for the mid-1980's Muniz and Kaplan book about AB Emblem patches).

posted 05-03-2016 03:56 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by hoorenz:
If I had spent just a couple of hours with the draft version, I could have helped Alexander a great deal. I am sure he knew where to find me, because he managed to find (and use) a lot of photos of patches I have scanned from my own collection and have on my Flickr website. (Even though he is very generous with credits, Spacepatches.nl is not mentioned anywhere in the book).

---

Recently, I was in contact with him about a story I was working on that had a connection to Glushko. When he saw what I'd written (all accurate and backed-up with reliable sources) he emailed me back effectively banning me from writing about his father!

posted 05-10-2016 04:30 AM               

• There is no additional information about Leonov's Woskhod-2 patch or who designed it. There are several theories, including the believe that Leonov has designed it himself; it would have been nice if Glushko had spoken to Leonov about it.

• Glushko mistakenly believes that the 1960/70's Zvezda and Vimpel logo's are Salyut program patches. Since these were also on the suits of cosmonauts who did not fly to Salyut, he is somewhat confused about these and writes some irrelevant explanations about this. It would have been nice to finally have some detailed information about these logos and their origins.

• Some images are those of souvenir patches made by Stewart Aviation, especially the pentagonal Apollo Soyuz and Hungarian Interkosmos patches stand out. Images of the original patches can be found...

• The original EO-14 patch is not in the book, which is the biggest omission: it was the first all-Russian designed and produced crew patch!

• There is no mention whatsoever of Western involvement (Stewart Aviation, Spaceview, Spacepatches.nl) and the role that (paying) collectors played since 1994 to help make the production of these patches possible. I think this is a really important aspect in the history of Russian patches.

• Some patches that were worn by cosmonauts are not discussed, for instance the commercial patches that were flown on Soyuz TM-11 (Aleko, Japanese brands) and TM-13 (Austrian companies), or the later Avikos or newly designed Vimpel patches. Some of these are visible in the pictures in the book.

• Clearly, Glushko chose not to include flags, seals and nametags, but an overview of different Soviet/Russian flags and Soviet seals and types of nametags used over time would have been nice.

• Luc's name and that of myself (in the role of designers) are misspelled (E. der Hoom, E. der Hoorn, L. den Abeelen - should read E. van der Hoorn and L. van den Abeelen); in other names, some characters (especially N, H, J) are mixed up. Which probably happened during translation from Cyrillic characters (Jorge Cartes, for instance, is in the book as J. Cartes, N. Cartes and H. Cartes).

• I have been named as co-designer of Soyuz TMA-19, TMA-20, and TMA-02M, which is not correct.

posted 05-18-2016 08:55 AM               

Page 112: The two Soyuz TMA-8 patches are okay; but there is a third one for the Brazilian cosmonaut with a silver boarder.

Page 164: There is no ISS Expedition 37.5; the official mission is called ISS Expedition 37 with a official patch. The Expedition 37.5 patch is not official and I know up to now two different versions of this souvenir patch.

Page 76: The STS-89 patch is not a "round" patch; it is "oval."

• In Part I and II, I miss the "mission-names" within the text below the patches.

• Sometimes patches in the "second or third version" are shown; but what about the "first and official version?"

• The "historical note," I think, is in general okay; but incorporation of parts of the text within the part I, II and III would be better. Part III can be split after ISS Expedition 25 (one part for ISS assembly and one part for the rest).

Erik, I think it is time for you to publish a book with all your information about Russian and international patches.

posted 05-19-2016 02:20 AM               

• 13. A picture is shown of Tereshkova's dove on her suit. The image is credited to collectSPACE. In fact, this was the image that Zvezda sent us (spacepatches.nl) to produce our souvenir version in 2013. They removed it from storage and laid it out flat for us. On the image, originally, were some lines and measurements, which I managed to remove. Our souvenir patch is shown on this page as well, but is is not identified as such.

• 16. The 'Vimpel Diamond' is identified by Glushko as a Salyut patch, which I believe is not correct. The funny thing is that he states that is was worn on both the left and right sides of the IVA and training suits. For someone claiming to have devised a method to identify images of crews aboard Soviet spaceships and stations, he should know that this patch was always worn on the left shoulder on actual flight suits and on the right shoulder of training suits...

• 17. The reason why Sergei Avdeev is wearing the patch in preparation for Soyuz TM-15, is that he is wearing an old, Vimpel-produced training suit... soon, newer Vimpel suits would emerge with a new blue, circular Vimpel logo (visible on some pictures in the book, but not described).

• 18. The 'Salyut' patch is not a Salyut patch... but simply the logo of the Zvezda factory.

• 22. A mid 1980's Western made souvenir version (from the batch of patches produced for David Fowler) is shown instead of the original pentagonal Soyuz-Apollo patch.

• 23. The Zvezda logo shown here is a reproduction produced for Alex Panchenko at the time of Soyuz TMA-9 (it has the exact same nylon background). See also page 104, for the MKC-version, which is from the same manufacturer and was made at the same time.

• 26. The Stewart Aviation souvenir version is shown for the Polish interkosmos patch (mistakenly identified here as the Soviet-Bulgarian crew patch...)

• 27. The Polish interkosmos project patch shown on this page, is a printed prototype produced before the final colors were decided upon. It is silver/grey; the final version was white. This prototype is in my collection.

• 30. The Stewart Aviation souvenir version of the Soviet-Hungarian crew patch is shown, with black instead of green in the Hungarian flag. This was a very curious mistake by Stewart Aviation at the time.

• 34. Stewart Aviation souvenir version of Soviet-Vietnamese crew patch is shown.

• 36. Mongolian crew patch from my collection has a production error (missing red stitches in upper left quadrant). Images of patches without this flaw would have been easy to find.

• 40. Stewart Aviation souvenir version of Indian-Soviet crew patch is shown. The image of the Zvezda-Mir patch is from my collection. On our Flickr account where it is taken from, I state that I doubt that it is an original.

• 41. Interkosmos patch shown is from the David Fowler souvenir batch.

• 42. Clipped Mir patch is from my collection and I am almost sure it is a modern copy.

• 43. Now some compliments. First flight of third variant of Zvezda-Mir patch is rightly identified. Good! At the end of the Mir-proram, there was a fourth variant, which is not described in the book.

• 45. Patch of Soviet French crew is the accurate flown version with diagonal lines! Good.

• 46. Soviet Japanese crew patch shown is version with a golden 1990. I am not sure on which suit it was flown. I remember researching it a long time ago, I believe I concluded the bright yellow version was on the Sokol suits.

• 47. Second variant of Juno patch is the same as in the first image: the image has simply been trimmed... (Credits are even given in the foreword on page 5 for this magical work)

• 48. Zvezda patch not identified here as Zvezda company logo. A red bordered variant also existed and was flown to Mir but is not mentioned here. Also, some other commercial patches flown on Soyuz TM-11 (Aleko, Japanese brands) and TM-13 (Austrian companies), as well as the later Avikos patches, are not described in the book. At least some remarks about this development should have been made, because we see some of these patches in the pictures in the book.

• 51. Back up crew patch for Mir'92 patch not shown/described.

• 52. Mir'92 project patch shown here is a souvenir version from Stewart Aviation.

• 54. A real mystery: why is the original Mir EO-14 patch (which was worn by the crew on their Sokol suits) not shown and described? Shown here is the version that Konstantin Lantratov designed from memory when he had visited Baikonur for the launch (and made by Stewart Aviation). This is one of the biggest omissions in the book. It was the first Russian designed and produced crew patch!

• 55. No mention of how Vadim Molchanov (and Stewart Aviation, not mentioned at all) got involved. Same (later) for Spaceview, Panchenko and Spacepatches.nl.

• 56. Usachev did wear his personal patch in space!

• 57. The Cyrillic version of the STS-60 patch is not shown. Maybe it was not worn by a cosmonaut, but for a book about Russian patches it would have been nice.

• 57. The correct version of the Soyuz TM-19 patch (produced by Aviation Patch Supplies - which is never mentioned) Good! A picture of the accompanying EO-16 patch would have been nice. The story about these patches is very well covered in a Novosti Kosmonavtiki-article.

• 58. Euromir-94 patch shown is a souvenir version from Stewart Aviation.

• 61. Mir-18 patches shown are souvenir versions. It would have been nice to read who designed it...

  (Glushko is not publishing images of Shuttle-Mir patches if no Russian was aboard).

• 64. Very nice that Glushko found a picture of the EO-20 patch worn during training! A number of other Spaceview patches is missing, probably because these were not worn by the cosmonauts.

• 65. Correct version of Euromir-95 patch. Good!

• 66. PKA patch... comes in several variants. Not sure if this one (from my collection) is an original one.

• 67. Baturin is wearing a different version of the PKA-patch, not described in the book. Correct version of Mir EO-21 patch shown. Good!

• 70. Designer of Pavel Vinogradov's patch, Elena Shishova, made more of this type of patches for other cosmonauts as well.

• 71. Mir '97 designed by Andora, not Andorea (it was a mistake on our website). A back up version also exists.

• 76. STS-89 patch is printed in wrong shape.

• 80. STS-88 patch also has a variant without Krikalev's name. Ok, well, without Krikalev's name it is not a Russian patch of course... understood.

• 82. Soyuz TM-29 patch was not designed by Dima Shcherbinin, but by Luc van den Abeelen.

• 83. Shown here is the second production run of the Planeta Zemlja Mir-28 patch, meant for collectors. It differs just slightly from the flown one in color (blues) and rays of the Sun.

• 87. Picture of yellow ISS-1 patch from my collection and Flickr website (Signed by Krikalev). It would have been nice if Glushko had found out why it was produced...

• 88. Shown here is Zvezda-Mir a variant on a blue felt background as worn by Zvezda space suit technicians.

• 90. Rosaviakosmos patch shown is a souvenir version. It is from my collection and on my Flickr site. I do have the original patch, but did not yet upload an image of it...

• 91. Shown here is the original Russian Planeta Zemlya version of Expedition-2. No explanation about its relation to the AB Emblem version...

• 93. Expedition-3 patch designed by Boris Berezin (his son Benjamin Berezin also designed a patch, so "B. Berezin" is not enough information).

• 97. Soyuz TM-34 patch shown is souvenir version made by Spaceview. Crew flew with a different version which was produced in small quantities.

• 99. Expedition-6 also has a version with Thomas instead of Pettit, two more variants also exist of Expedition-7 (Kaleri, Moshchenko).

• 100. "Luc den Abeelen" (consequently misspelled) is of course Luc van den Abeelen.

• 101. Soyuz TMA-5: good decission to choose for the Panchenko variant! But the one shown is not the metal wire version that was flown - it is a later souvenir from the Star City shop.

• 102. Expedition-10: Metal wire version! Which actually flew. Good. (Although image is not of the flown variant, but of an oversized version for collectors).

• 105. Metal wire version of Sharipov's patch was flown.

• 107. Both versions of Soyuz TMA-6. Good!

• 108. This variant of TMA-6 was never worn - it was produced by Spaceview when the crew was already in orbit. Paper printout is in crew portrait.

• 109. Blue and black patches for Expedition-12: blue was for Tokarev, black for McArthur. No explanation why a patch was used with Reiter's name on it (while he was not in the Expedition-12 crew).

• 111. Tokarev personal patch printed in wrong shape (it is oval).

• 111. No explanation why this extra version of Soyuz TMA-8 was produced! Would have been a nice thing to know.

• 112. Silver version of the Soyuz TMA-8 patch not shown.

• 113. Several versions of the Expedition-13 patch not shown (Blue border, Red and blue Reiter versions with and without German flag, yellow AB Emblem version without German flag).

• 115. Soyuz TMA-9 also came in gold bordered variant for Ansari.

• 117. Good version of Soyuz TMA-10! Nice. Panchenko's red bordered and blue bordered versions were used on onboard IVA suits, not mentioned here.

• 119. Soyuz TMA-11 patch shown here is a souvenir version from Star City. Original also came in blue and silver bordered variants.

• 121. Original Soyuz TMA-12 patch. Good!

• 121. ISS-17 patch came in several variants. This is the final version we ordered from AB Emblem for Oleg, with corrected "E" in Kononenko. Interesting detail: AB Emblem copied their first version of the patch from a Russian original, worn by Kononenko and Volkov, which did not have the mistake!

• 122. Patch for Soyuz TMA-13 was designed by Benjamin Berezin.

• 124. My name is not E. der Hoom, but E. van der Hoorn. Jorge Cartes helped me to refine some elements of the patch, technically he is not among the designers, but I am glad his name is there!

• 125. My name is also not E. der Hoorn... seen on other pages as well.

• 126. This variant of the Roscosmos patch was first produced in Russia (not shown) and later mass produced for Roscosmos by us (version shown).

• 129. Expedition-22 was co-designed by J. Cartes, not H. Cartes (probably translation error: Cyrillic B,V,H, N are sometimes mixed up).

• 132. Prime version shown and back up version shown are from two different manufacturers. The prime patch shown here, was on the IVA suits; a patch of the same type as the back up patch shown here, was on the Sokols. This had to do with some late minute production emergencies.

• 133. Two versions were produced of Expedition-23, version shown was rejected by Russians because they believed it showed their flag 180 degrees in the wrong position. Jorge Cartes is also not called N. Cartes.

• 133. Detachment 1997 patch was designed by Bert Vis.

• 134. I am mentioned as co-designer for Soyuz TMA-19, which I am not

• 135. Two versions of the Expedition-24 patch exist, one with mistake in name of Kornienko. Corrected version (not flown on Sokols, flown on IVA suits) is shown here.

• 135. Luc, Jacques van Oene and Oleg Skripochka were not involved in the design of the TMA-01M patch.

• 137. Me and Jacques are mentioned as co-designers of the Soyuz TMA-20 patch, which is not correct. Should be Korolenko/Van den Abeelen/Kondratiev

• 138. Two versions exist of the Expedition-26 patch. One with mistake in Kondratiev's name (shown here) and one with a corrected "E".

• 139. Larger blue Roscosmos patch was designed by Luc van der Abeelen together with Alex Krasnov. Russian made version is shown here; a variant produced by us was initially worn.

• 140. This is not the back up patch for Soyuz TMA-21. This is a special version with the name of Gagarin. A third variant (not shown) was used as the back-up patch.

• 142. Jacques and myself are named as co-designers of the Soyuz TMA-02M patch. This is not correct.

• 144/145: Backup versions of TMA-22 and 03M are not shown

• 149. Correct version of Expedition-31 is shown! Good. The crew prefered this version over the AB Emblem patch.

• 151. Design of Soyuz TMA-06M was by Tarelkin only; Tsenki version shown here was not worn by the cosmonauts

• 157. V. Desnil? Should read B. Dumesnil. Tsenki-version of the patch is shown, which was not used on the crew's suits.

• 153: Expedition-34 - Tsenki version shown, not worn by cosmonauts

• 154: Soyuz TMA-08M: Tsenki version shown, not worn by cosmonauts

• 158. Soyuz TMA-10M was designed by Kotov's daughter Valeria, not by O. Kotov

• 162. Tsenki-version of Expedition-38 patch is shown

• 173. Back up version of TMA-16M not shown.

• Finally, I would like to stress once more that of the 243 images of patches in the book, 143 were photographed or scanned by myself and published on Flickr. Most of these patches are from my own collection. Glushko copied these images without my permission and apparently, nobody at DOM Publishers checked how Glushko obtained these. Also, nobody checked if he really is an expert in this field.