NASA Collectibles

Patches are especially colorful and easy-to-collect keepsakes. The main NASA patch, known since its introduction in 1959 by employees of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as the “meatball,” is a circular patch with a white border, white letters, and two red lines that come together at an ascending point (that device is meant to represent flight). An elliptical white circle in the center of the patch is meant to suggest a spacecraft orbiting the Earth, while other white elements against a field of blue are supposed to be stars. The meatball patch was redesigned in 1992 as a blue-bordered “vector” patch, in which the red lines extend beyond the edges of the circle at the lower left and upper right.

Mission patches chronicle flights of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle programs, whose patches bear the initials STS for Space Transportation System. Although the first manned Mercury flight was Mercury 3 on May 5, 1961, with Alan Shepard, more than a dozen unmanned flights preceded it. One was even “piloted” by a chimpanzee named Ham, whose number “65” brass neck tag recently sold at auction for more than $12,000. As for the patch for Mercury 3, it was produced later (during the actual 15-minute, sub-orbital flight, Shepard wore only a meatball patch on his space suit).

One of the most storied Gemini patches was produced for Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad of Gemini 5, which orbited the Earth 120 times over the course of its eight-day flight. The slogan on the patch, stitched into the side of a Conestoga wagon, was “8 Days or Bust,” but NASA officials were concerned that if the crew did not stay up that long, the mission would be deemed a failure. So, the patches worn by Cooper and Conrad had small bits of white cloth stitched over the slogan.

Of course, not all NASA collectibles are produced for the use of astronauts. Anchor-Hocking made Fire King coffee mugs with the red NASA “worm” logo on them, while the U.S. Postal Service has printed space-related stamps for anyone to use. Still, some of those stamps were produced to benefit astronauts. The most famous of these are the Apollo 11 insurance covers, which were signed by all three astronauts and left with their families in the event that they did not return from their mission (normal insurance companies would not give the men policies). Look for Apollo 11 insurance covers dated July 16, 1969 (the launch date), or July 20, 1969 (the day they landed on the moon).

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