Posts: 1292
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Nov 2000

Posts: 1570
From: Staten Island, New York USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 05-01-2012 04:08 PM               

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By 'astronaut wings', you must be referring to the special pilots' wings awarded by the Air Force, Navy/Marines and Army to their respective service astronauts; in the case of the Army, no Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronaut carried them.

The Navy had no 'basic/senior/command' designations for their wings. As for the Air Force, only Joe Engle carried his senior pilot astronaut wings over from the X-15 program, later flying the shuttle into space of course.

I'll leave a more detailed listing of Air Force pilot-astronauts and their accumulated flying hours (which determines their type of pilots' wings) to another forum member.

Posts: 412
From: Houston, TX, USA
Registered: Jan 2012

posted 05-04-2012 09:36 PM               

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Maybe this has nothing to do with what you're asking, but I read recently where Alan Bean took his silver astronaut pin to the moon with him. At the end of the second EVA he pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it into Surveyor Crater. When he got home, he received a new gold astronaut pin signifying the fact that he had flown a mission.

I'm not sure if they were pins or wings, but a lot of astronauts carried their pin or the pins of other astronauts to the moon. Some of those are still there.

In addition to Alan Bean, the Apollo 15 crew left their PPK's in the lunar module. They lost wedding rings, photos, flags, and yes, pins, most of which belonged to their friends and family members.

Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007

Posts: 6410
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 07-16-2026 02:31 AM               

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We all know that pilot/aviator wings have always been worn on the heart (left side) but NASA wanted to emphasize a "civilian" look during the Gemini Project by putting the NASA meatball on the heart.

Funny, while the Gemini astronauts were asked to perform military tasks (e.g. Gemini V observed a “Minuteman” launch and Gemini VII photographed a “Polaris” launch).

In fact the Gemini astronauts wore the black leather name tags, not their wings but on Gemini VIa Schirra and Stafford effectively wore their "metal" aviator/pilot wings on the actual space suit, the first to do so (later on Gemini XI both Conrad and Gordon wore their sewed-on US Navy aviator wings on the space suit).

By the time of Skylab, the name tag moved to the leftside again. BY the time of the space shuttle, astronauts started to wear their wings again on the left side of the pumpkin suit.

Posts: 13
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Jul 2009