posted 07-29-2018 10:01 PM               

The patches are now available from AB Emblem. What follows are Tim's patch descriptions:

• Skylab Program Commemorative — This design illustrates not only the three crewed increments but pays homage to the astronauts who served in support of the program.

  Walt Cunningham the first astronaut to serve as manager for the Astronaut Office.

  Bob Crippen, William Thornton and Bo Bobko, the SMEAT crew. Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test was a 56 day simulation in a chamber at JSC to evaluate equipment and procedures.

  Hank Hartsfield and Dick Truly who served as support crew.

  Rusty Schweikart, Bruce McCandless and Story Musgrave who backed up the first crew and Vance Brand, Bill Lenoir and Don Lind who backed up the second and third crews.

  The border colors evoke the mustard brown clothing worn on orbit.

  

• Skylab I — Depicts the launch of the orbital workshop on the last Saturn V rocket to fly. The perspective is just before things went horribly wrong with the loss of the meteoroid shield and solar array.

  Paying tribute to the three crewed missions, I wanted to clear up the confusion about the mission designation numbers. The original mission patches were numbered 1, 2 and 3 while the official NASA designation numbered the launches including the lab itself as 1, 2, 3 and 4. I included both. As with my Apollo set, I wanted to depict the mission patch images as realistic and design a "spirit" patch that captured the essence of each mission. I am honored that before his death Alan Bean consulted on the Skylab II/3 patches.

  

• Skylab I/2 Anniversary Crew Patch: Based on the painting of Skylab orbiting the Earth by the patch artist, Frank Kelly Freas.
  

posted 07-29-2018 10:03 PM               

• Skylab I/2 Spirit Patch: In 1973, an editorial cartoonist depicted the launch of the first increment crew as a screwdriver launching into space. Pete Conrad said at launch: "Skylab 2, we fix anything!"
  

• Skylab II/3 Anniversary Crew Patch: Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" was a sculpture instead of a drawing. The Earth and Sun are depicted as realistically as possible.
  

• Skylab II/3 Spirit Patch: The second crew earned the nickname "Supercrew" for accomplishing 150 percent of mission objectives. They carried spiders as part of a student experiment and the "Vitruvian Man" is depicted in the Skylab EVA suit. Al Bean said their most significant accomplishment was to erect the second sunshield.
  

posted 07-29-2018 10:03 PM               

• Skylab III/4 Anniversary Crew Patch; I updated the appearance of the original mission patch elements to look as realistic as possible. The man depicted is Science Pilot Ed Gibson dressed in his orbit uniform. At the 40th anniversary celebration in 2013, my wife and I sat at Gibson's table. A wonderful man.
  

• Skylab III/4 Spirit Patch: The last crew set a duration record that stood for years. So I depicted them as marathon runners. The shape of the patch is the cleat on their shoes worn in orbit. Also depicted is Comet Kohoutek, which was studied during their increment.
  

• Skylab Rescue: After attending the launch of Apollo 17 in 1972 and seeing the patch created by Robert McCall, I knew I wanted to contribute in that way. The Skylab mission patches had already been designed but during the second increment a leak developed in the RCS of the service module, requiring the preparation of a rescue.

  This was the very first mission patch I designed and submitted to Vance Brand. He saved my original drawings all these years and returned them to me in September 2017 for my birthday.