| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Robert Pearlman |  In March 2009, Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Barratt will launch to the International Space Station. Nicole Stott will join them in August, arriving with the STS-128 shuttle crew to replace Tim Kopra. In May, cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will launch on Soyuz TMA-15 with European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk. Their arrival will expand the station's crew size to six for the first time. Expedition 19 will include visits by two space shuttle missions that will equip the station with the additional facilities needed to support a six-person crew. The increment will also prepare the ISS for the later arrival of Russian research modules and additional docking ports. |
| KAPTEC | One of the most beautiful emblems of last times. I like it very much. Congratulations to the artist(s).  |
| KSCartist | A fantastic design! Kudos to the artist(s) and the crew. |
| Jacques van Oene | I think it is one of the worst designs ever! What a poor cheap design... It almost looks like it was done in 1 minute to design this... |
| ShuttleDiscovery | I don't know what to make of it. It looks very childish! |
| Mike Z | It's not a bad design but the ISS is lacking detail. And the clouds could be a little more real looking. |
| Dave Clow | Reminds me a little of the Kelly Freas Skylab art. |
| KSCartist | Of course you're all entitled to your opinion but I think it was meant to look "childish" and whimiscal. Most crews motto is the simpler the better. Bottom line it's what the crew wanted. |
| Space Emblem Art | It's not my favorite design but I don't want to bash it because after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (Yeah, I know it's a cliche'). I wonder if the artist is Russian. If you've seen samples of Soviet/Russian space art, some of it is rather abstract compared to the more detailed space art we may be used to in the West. Anyway, we wouldn't be seeing it if the crew didn't like it. |
| keith.wilson | Does anyone have any idea what the 10 stars represent? |
| aerospace educator | My guess (and it is only a guess based upon conjecture) is that one of the 3-star clusters is for the Soyuz crew launched on Exp. 19 and the other 3-star cluster is for the crew landing in the Soyuz. The four individual stars represent the four Expedition 19 inflight members. |
| robsouth | Probably the worst space related patch I have ever seen. I think if this was my crew patch I'd let my back up go instead! |
| KSCartist | Having a bad day Rob? The crew liked it. The artist (who has a great future) is now a part of space program history forever and you can't offer anything positive. A shame. |
| hoorenz | I am a bit amused by these threads (this one and 126). The usual pattern in this forum is: Person A posts a patch he designed, person B is saying: "Wow! What a great patch!" Person B is posting a design for another mission, and the next post will be from person A, saying: "Your grandchildren can be proud of you!" No one is ever offended by that. Is it a shame too that they can never offer anything negative? |
| robsouth | Erik, I like your comments. If something is good, in my opinion, I will say so. If I dislike it I will also say so. I just will not say something is good just to fall in line with everyone else. I still think this patch is atrocious, the lettering is tacky and some of the other elements are messy. |
| hoorenz | An observation: in this patch, the Earth, basic shape of the Sun, the ISS and the lettering all share a very distinguished style. Then, there are these perfectly rounded stars, all exactly the same size, the perfect circular shape of the patch itself, the perfectly arced script and the extremely clean, straight rays appearing from behind the Sun. I have noticed that this mixture of styles (usually it manifests itself in a slightly different way: with certain elements pictured extremely detailed as in a photograph, the other elements more stylized) is something seen pretty often in modern day patches. |
| BMckay | Check out this photo. Why is this different? |
| hoorenz | This is not a patch, but directly embroidered onto the polos. Probably not such sophisticated equipment and thus less detail and colors possible? |
| Robert Pearlman | That is the "crew version" of the insignia. For their crew apparel, ISS and shuttle crews typically use a simplified version of their mission patch. |
| dogcrew5369 | Could anyone tell me why my Expedition 19 patch I purchased from Skyforce Space Patches is 5" in diameter when all other round ISS patches are the usual 4"? Why the shift to a larger size with this patch? Just curious. |
| Bill Hunt | Don't fret - that's the size it's supposed to be. I purchased mine directly from AB Emblem, and it's closer to 5 inches - about 4.5 I think. It could be that it needed to be a little larger so that all of the cloud detail could be more easily embroidered. But that's only a thought. Does anyone else know anything more definitive? |