posted 09-22-2017 08:59 AM               

Our Earth is but an island in the cosmos. Expedition 53 crew is embracing the island lifestyle with our Space Station Hawaiians on Aloha Friday!

STS-26 commander Rick Hauck described the origin of his 1988 crew's Hawaiian shirts in a NASA oral history:

We were presented with these Hawaiian shirts by the people that did the overhaul and the preparations in the Orbital Processing Facility, the OPF, on Discovery, and the reason is that they — I don't know if it was once a week or once or month, I think it was once a week — they would wear colorful shirts in to work. They called them their loud shirts and they called themselves the "Loud and Proud" group. So we were made honorary members of the Loud and Proud group, and we said, "We're going to have to take these shirts up into space with us."

posted 09-23-2017 05:32 AM               

The ones locals wear are more muted and subtle. Speaking of which, I've been in conversations with one of the big aloha shirt designer-manufacturers here (Reyn Spooner) about doing a 50th Anniversary of Apollo themed aloha shirt.