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Author
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Topic: Apollo crew portraits with mission patches
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LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-10-2011 01:50 PM
  
Pre-flight crew portraits for Apollo 7, 9, 10, 14, 15 and 16 show the astronauts wearing mission patches on their spacesuits.However, in the pre-flight crew portraits that I have seen for Apollo 8, 11, 12, 13 and 17, the astronauts are not wearing mission patches on their spacesuits. Have you seen any crew portraits that include the mission patches for those flights? I can understand the Apollo 13 situation because of the late crew substitution. |
mjanovec
Member Posts: 3811
From: Midwest, USA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 10-10-2011 03:14 PM
I'm guessing that some crews either hadn't finalized their patch design (or didn't have the patches ready) by the time their portraits were taken.In the case of Apollo 13, the original crew portrait (with Mattingly) shows their suits without the patches, however, they have a large mission emblem sitting in front of them. In fact, the Apollo 13 original crew photo is the first crew photo to prominently display the mission patch design. All of the remaining crew photos (Apollo 14 through 17) prominently display their mission patch design (even if Apollo 17's patch was added after the photo was taken). |
J.L
Member Posts: 682
From: Bloomington, Illinois, USA
Registered: May 2005
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posted 10-10-2011 03:16 PM
Beta cloth mission emblems were not sewn onto the Apollo 8, 11 and 12 flight suits until after the countdown test held 2-3 weeks prior to launch. Official portraits had been taken long before that. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-10-2011 03:31 PM
I should add that when the Apollo 1 crew was photographed in front of Pad 34, the astronauts were wearing their mission patches.It looks like they used temporary decals instead of beta cloth mission emblems for the Apollo 16 crew portrait. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-12-2011 01:52 PM
That's what I figured. Thanks for all the explanations.Maybe the official Apollo crew portraits should have been taken post-flight with the astronauts wearing their flown spacesuits. Then all the crews would have been wearing their beta cloth mission emblems and the 12 moonwalkers would be wearing all that lunar dust too. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-18-2011 11:27 AM
The one thing that really stands out whenever I see the Apollo 11 crew portrait is the missing beta cloth mission emblems. You can get a sense of what the portrait could have looked like in this NASA KSC-69P-0616 photograph of Neil Armstrong. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-22-2011 11:56 AM
NASA photo S69-17590 shows an Apollo 9 crew portrait with the Saturn V in the background. |
golddog
Member Posts: 210
From: australia
Registered: Feb 2008
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posted 10-22-2011 05:34 PM
If you bring up the high res version and then magnify the patches, you'll observe that the patches on the Apollo 9 crew's suits are not beta cloth and are not sewn on to the suits. It looks like they are attached with tape or similar. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-22-2011 05:56 PM
At least that is better than no patches at all. NASA photo S69-25478 is an alternate Apollo 9 crew portrait taken at at later date - 23 Feb 1969 - this time with the Apollo 9 spacecraft in the background. It looks to me like the astronauts might be wearing beta cloth mission emblems in that photo. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 01-19-2013 10:33 PM
quote:
Originally posted by LM-12:
Maybe the official Apollo crew portraits should have been taken post-flight with the astronauts wearing their flown spacesuits.
Only problem with that is there would have been a long wait for Apollo 11, 12 and 14 given the lunar quarantine procedures. I also doubt that NASA would have allowed that since the suits, at least on the early flights, were likely undergoing engineering analysis to see how well they functioned (not to mention the lunar dust on them). |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 01-20-2013 10:40 AM
Perhaps not doable, but they would have been great photos. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 04-12-2015 08:41 AM
I don't suppose there are many such photos out there, but it is interesting to see Ken Mattingly actually wearing the beta cloth Apollo 13 mission patch. Lovell, Mattingly and Haise wore the patch during the Countdown Demonstraion Test. |
J.L
Member Posts: 682
From: Bloomington, Illinois, USA
Registered: May 2005
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posted 04-12-2015 10:30 AM
There are eight on the Apollo 13 Retro Space Images disc. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 05-02-2015 09:01 AM
There is another version of this Apollo 16 crew portrait with Ken Mattingly in the middle, like the names on the patch. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 07-29-2015 11:04 AM
Some early training photos show the command module pilot wearing the NASA meatball logo on the left side of the spacesuit.Photo S68-42164 is an Apollo 8 image of the McDivitt crew at CM-103 before they switched to Apollo 9. Dave Scott has his logo on the left. John Young is also wearing the NASA logo on the left side of his training suit in Apollo 7 backup crew photo S68-42906. Donn Eisele wore his on the right. |
schnappsicle
Member Posts: 397
From: Houston, TX, USA
Registered: Jan 2012
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posted 08-03-2015 07:34 AM
It seems to me that in both photos referenced above, the CMP (Scott and Young) both have the meatball logo on the left and the CDR and LMP have theirs on the right side. Could it be something that simple, or is there some deeper meaning to the location of the logos that goes back to military tradition? |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 08-03-2015 12:50 PM
I have not as yet seen any other Apollo astronauts wearing the NASA logo on the left. Maybe the Scott and Young suits shown above are just oddities, so to speak. |
mach3valkyrie
Member Posts: 720
From: Albany, Oregon
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 08-04-2015 06:06 PM
It could be one more way to tell the CM pilot from the other two crewmen, say if their helmets were on with visors down. Just a guess. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 08-04-2015 06:32 PM
John Young did wear suits with the NASA logo on the right. S68-42908 is another photo of Young wearing the NASA logo on the left.
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LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-11-2015 01:22 AM
Note the NASA patch location and the blue neck ring on the spacesuit Al Worden is wearing in Apollo 15 training photo S71-21324. His Apollo 12 backup crew primary suit (#081) was reused as his Apollo 15 backup suit. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 06-18-2020 04:39 AM
The astronauts in the Skylab 4 crew portrait all seem to be wearing beta cloth patches. Note the neck rings show that Carr and Gibson are wearing "Class lll Not for Flight" suits.In the Apollo 15 crew portrait, Worden appears to be wearing a "Class lll Not for Flight" suit. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3495
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-24-2020 12:05 AM
In addition to John Young and Dave Scott, Richard Gordon also had an Apollo suit with the NASA meatball patch on the left side. S/C-104 Apollo 9 crew compartment fit and function C2F2 test at the North American, Downey, Calif. Facility. Also, note that those three suits with the NASA meatball on the left have a typeface on the name tags that looks different (bolder) than other Apollo suits. |
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