NASA insignia

Last updated
NASA insignia
US-NASA-Seal-EO10849.jpg
1959 NASA seal, black and white
NASA seal.svg
1961 NASA seal, color
NASA logo.svg
NASA "meatball" insignia, primary logo 1959–1975, 1992–present
NASA Worm logo.svg
NASA "worm" logotype 1975–1992, re-instated as a secondary logo in 2020

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) insignia has three main official designs, although the one with stylized red curved text (the "worm") was retired from official use from May 22, 1992, until April 3, 2020, when it was reinstated as a secondary logo. The three logos include the NASA insignia (also known as the "meatball" [1] ), the NASA logotype (also known as the "worm"), and the NASA seal. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

The NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959, and slightly modified by President Kennedy in 1961. [5] [6]

History

The NASA logo dates from 1959, when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) transformed into an agency that advanced both astronautics and aeronautics—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA seal

In the NASA insignia design, the sphere represents a planet, the stars represent space, the red chevron is a wing representing aeronautics (the latest design in hypersonic wings at the time the logo was developed), and then the orbiting spacecraft going around the wing. It is known officially as the insignia. [7]

NASA "meatball" insignia

After a NASA Lewis Research Center illustrator's design was chosen for the new agency's official seal, the executive secretary of NASA asked James Modarelli, the head of Reports Division at Lewis Research Center, to design a logo that could be used for less formal purposes. Modarelli simplified the seal, leaving only the white stars and orbital path on a round field of blue with a red vector. He then added white N-A-S-A lettering.

George Neago created the original NASA "Meatball" logo selected and applied by NASA from 1958–63. Working as an industrial artist for the Lockheed Corporation's Missile Division in Palo Alto, California (a US Government and NASA contractor) from the mid-1950s to the 1990s, his graphics logo was selected in a graphics competition as the winning entry. James Modarelli was the Reports Department Manager at Lockheed, who supervised George Neago when George created the NASA graphics logo. This 1958–63 silver/medium blue logo design did not include the "Red Vector" that later appeared in the 1963 when NASA and Lockheed Managers decided the logo needed an "update" (without George Neago's knowledge or permission) to promote renewed public interest in NASA. [1]

NASA "worm" logotype

In 1974, as part of the Federal Graphics Improvement Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, NASA hired Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn to design a more modern logo. [7] In 1975, the agency switched to the modernist NASA logotype, nicknamed "the worm", a red, stylized rendering of the letters N-A-S-A. [8] The horizontal bars on the "A"s are removed in the worm logo, with the negative space within each of them suggesting the tip of a rocket. [9] [10]

The NASA logotype was retired from official use on May 22, 1992 [7] by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. The design was used only for special occasions and commercial merchandising purposes approved by the Visual Identity Coordinator at NASA Headquarters until 2020, when it was brought out of retirement by administrator Jim Bridenstine, and unveiled on the booster for SpaceX's Crew-Demo 2 Mission. [11] [12]

As of 2020, the "worm" logotype – in a medium blue instead of red – is part of the branding of the NASA Federal Credit Union. [13] For the 2022 Major League Baseball season, the Houston Astros introduced an alternate space-themed uniform as part of the league's City Connect program, with "Space City" rendered in the "worm" logotype in place of the team's name on the jersey front, and numerals and player nameplate in the same font. [14]

Usage regulation

NASA insignia visible on Space Shuttle Endeavour, 2007 STS-118 approaching ISS.jpg
NASA insignia visible on Space Shuttle Endeavour, 2007

The official NASA seal is reserved for use in connection with the NASA Administrator. It is used in more formal traditional and ceremonial events such as award presentations and press conferences. According to NASA Headquarters, the seal should never be used with the NASA insignia, since the two elements are intended for different purposes and are visually incompatible when seen side by side.

Since its reintroduction in 2020, the "worm" logotype has been used only for human spaceflight-related activities,[ citation needed ] featuring prominently on the SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station and on the Solid Rocket Boosters of the SLS rocket used for the Artemis I mission.

Unlike most images produced by the United States Government, the insignia, the "worm" logo and the NASA seal are not in the public domain. [15] Their usage is restricted under Code of Federal Regulations 14 CFR 1221. [16] These NASA emblems should be reproduced only from original reproduction proofs, transparencies, or computer files available from NASA Headquarters.

The colors used in the logo are the following: [17]

Popularity

The NASA logos have been popular and used in popular culture, most notably in Star Trek as an inspiration for its symbols, [18] [19] [20] and particular in US-American culture it has been representing the capability and identity of the United States. [21] Especially since 2017, NASA insignia have become popular fashion elements, after the fashion company Coach received permission for using the then-retired "worm" logo on a line of purses and clothing. After that, additional companies have used the "worm" logo in their designs, and NASA has reintroduced its official use. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

Space Shuttle <i>Challenger</i> Second spacecraft used in NASAs Space Shuttle program

Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the commanding ship of a nineteenth-century scientific expedition that traveled the world, Challenger was the second Space Shuttle orbiter to fly into space after Columbia, and launched on its maiden flight in April 1983. It was destroyed in January 1986 soon after launch in a disaster that killed all seven crewmembers aboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logo</span> Graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition

A logo is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or to include the text of the name that it represents as in a wordmark.

The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in North Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington, D.C. area. As of January 2022, Lockheed Martin employs approximately 115,000 employees worldwide, including about 60,000 engineers and scientists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics</span> U.S. federal agency; predecessor to NASA

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel were transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA is an initialism, i.e., pronounced as individual letters, rather than as a whole word.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vehicle Assembly Building</span> Spacecraft assembly building operated by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center

The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, is a large building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), designed to assemble large pre-manufactured space vehicle components, such as the massive Saturn V, the Space Shuttle and the Space Launch System, and stack them vertically onto one of three mobile launcher platforms used by NASA. As of March 2022, the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was assembled inside in preparation for the Artemis 1 mission, launched on November 16, 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armstrong Flight Research Center</span> United States aerospace research facility

The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight, highest speed by a crewed, powered aircraft, the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft, and many others. AFRC operates a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA, a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. As of 2023, Bradley Flick is the center's director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">STS-95</span> 1998 American crewed spaceflight

STS-95 was a Space Shuttle mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 29 October 1998, using the orbiter Discovery. It was the 25th flight of Discovery and the 92nd mission flown since the start of the Space Shuttle program in April 1981. It was a highly publicized mission due to former Project Mercury astronaut and United States Senator John H. Glenn Jr.'s return to space for his second space flight. At age 77, Glenn became the oldest person to go into space, a record that remained unbroken for 23 years until 82-year-old Wally Funk flew on a suborbital flight on Blue Origin NS-16, launching on 20 July 2021, which in turn was broken by William Shatner at age 90 on 13 October 2021. Glenn, however, remains the oldest person to reach Earth orbit. This mission is also noted for inaugurating ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the U.S., with live coast-to-coast coverage of the launch. In another first, Pedro Duque became the first Spaniard in space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solid rocket booster</span> Solid propellant motor used to augment the thrust of a rocket

A solid rocket booster (SRB) is a large solid propellant motor used to provide thrust in spacecraft launches from initial launch through the first ascent. Many launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, SLS and Space Shuttle, have used SRBs to give launch vehicles much of the thrust required to place the vehicle into orbit. The Space Shuttle used two Space Shuttle SRBs, which were the largest solid propellant motors ever built and the first designed for recovery and reuse. The propellant for each solid rocket motor on the Space Shuttle weighed approximately 500,000 kilograms.

Lockheed Martin Space is one of the four major business divisions of Lockheed Martin. It has its headquarters in Littleton, Colorado, with additional sites in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Sunnyvale, California; Santa Cruz, California; Huntsville, Alabama; and elsewhere in the United States and United Kingdom. The division currently employs about 20,000 people, and its most notable products are commercial and military satellites, space probes, missile defense systems, NASA's Orion spacecraft, and the Space Shuttle external tank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microgramma (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface

Microgramma is a sans serif font which was designed by Aldo Novarese and Alessandro Butti for the Nebiolo Type Foundry in 1952. It became popular for use with technical illustrations in the 1960s and was a favourite of graphic designers by the early seventies, its uses ranging from publicity and publication design to packaging, largely because of its availability as a Letraset typeface. Early typesetters also incorporated it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PlanetSpace</span>

PlanetSpace was a privately funded Chicago-based rocket and space travel project founded by Geoff Sheerin, CEO of the Canadian Arrow corporation. The owner was Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Space Alliance</span> American spaceflight corporation (1995–2019)

United Space Alliance (USA) was a spaceflight operations company. USA was a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), equally owned by Rockwell International and Lockheed Martin. The sale of Rockwell's aerospace and defense assets, including the Rockwell Space Operations Company (RSOC) and the Space Transportation System Operations Contract (STSOC) to Boeing in December 1996 made Boeing the co-owner along with Lockheed for the rest of the company's corporate existence. The company was headquartered in Houston, Texas and in 2008 employed approximately 8,800 people in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and the Washington, D.C. area. In 2014, the company was in the process of dissolving. The company was finally dissolved on 20 December 2019.

UP Aerospace, Inc. is a private spaceflight corporation headquartered in Denver, Colorado. UP Aerospace provides sub-orbital transportation for corporate, military and educational payloads, via their SpaceLoft XL sounding rocket launch vehicles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space advertising</span> Use of advertisements in outer space

Space advertising is the practice of advertising in space. This is usually done using product placement during crewed space missions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space Shuttle orbiter</span> Reusable spacecraft component of the Space Shuttle system

The Space Shuttle orbiter is the spaceplane component of the Space Shuttle, a partially reusable orbital spacecraft system that was part of the discontinued Space Shuttle program. Operated from 1977 to 2011 by NASA, the U.S. space agency, this vehicle could carry astronauts and payloads into low Earth orbit, perform in-space operations, then re-enter the atmosphere and land as a glider, returning its crew and any on-board payload to the Earth.

The Lockheed Star Clipper was a proposed Earth-to-orbit spaceplane based on a large lifting body spacecraft and a wrap-around drop tank. Originally proposed during a United States Air Force program in 1966, the basic Star Clipper concept lived on during the early years of the NASA Space Shuttle program, and as that project evolved, in a variety of new versions like the LS-200.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orion (spacecraft)</span> American–European spacecraft class for the Artemis program

Orion is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space. Capable of supporting a crew of four beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Orion is intended to launch atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crew Dragon Demo-2</span> First crewed flight of Crew Dragon

Crew Dragon Demo-2 was the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft, named Endeavour, launched on 30 May 2020 on a Falcon 9 rocket, and carried NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken to the International Space Station in the first crewed orbital spaceflight launched from the United States since the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011, and the first ever operated by a commercial provider. Demo-2 was also the first two-person orbital spaceflight launched from the United States since STS-4 in 1982. Demo-2 completed the validation of crewed spaceflight operations using SpaceX hardware and received human-rating certification for the spacecraft, including astronaut testing of Crew Dragon capabilities on orbit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space Force Delta</span> Official logo of the United States Space Force

The Space Force Delta is the official logo of the U.S. Space Force, the space warfare service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. The delta itself was unveiled on 22 July 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swati Mohan</span> American aerospace engineer

Swati Mohan is an Indian-American aerospace engineer and was the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 mission.

References

  1. 1 2 Garber, Steve. "NASA "Meatball" Logo". NASA History Program Office. NASA. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
  2. ↑ Ellen Lupton (1996). Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary American Culture. Princeton Architectural. ISBN   156898099X.
  3. ↑ NASA takes 'meatball' over 'worm' Archived 2018-10-04 at the Wayback Machine , The Roanoke Times, (May 24, 1992).
  4. ↑ "Rover's stunning image of lander". BBC News . 2004-01-21. Archived from the original on 2020-10-31. Retrieved 2010-01-06.
  5. ↑ Executive Order 10849 (Wikisource)
  6. ↑ Executive Order 10942 (Wikisource)
  7. 1 2 3 Greenbaum, Hilary (August 3, 2011). "Who Made Those NASA Logos?". The New York Times . Archived from the original on September 16, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
  8. ↑ "History of the Insignia". NASA. Archived from the original on 2005-04-04.
  9. ↑ "NASA logo evolution: meatball vs worm". Logo Design Love. 2011-08-03. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  10. ↑ "Logos With Words: The Delicate Relationship Of Fonts As A Logo | LOGO.com". logo.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  11. ↑ Dunbar, Brian. "The Worm is Back!". NASA. Archived from the original on 2 April 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  12. ↑ Chang, Kenneth (8 April 2020). "NASA's 'Worm' Logo Will Return to Space – The new old logo, dropped in the 1990s in favor of a more vintage brand, will adorn a SpaceX rocket that is to carry astronauts to the space station in May". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 27 October 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
  13. ↑ "NASA Federal Credit Union". Archived from the original on 2012-12-28. Retrieved 2018-05-10.
  14. ↑ "Astros reveal space-themed City Connect unis". Houston Astros. MLB Advanced Media. April 10, 2022. Archived from the original on April 10, 2022. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Media Usage Guidelines". National Aeronautic and Space Administration. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  16. ↑ "Code of Federal Regulations 14 CFR 1221". Archived from the original on 2012-02-06. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
  17. ↑ "NASAstyle FULL GUIDE – NASA StyleGuide" (PDF). National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). November 2006. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2017-06-05.
  18. ↑ Cooley, John (2023-07-24). "The Starfleet Insignia Explained". Star Trek. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  19. ↑ Burrows, Jillian Ada (2020-05-20). "Star Trek or US Space Force?. Let us settle this debate once and for… — Jill Burrows". Medium. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  20. ↑ "Emblem-atic". FACT TREK. 2021-10-06. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  21. 1 2 Wattles, Jackie (2022-07-23). "Why everyone's wearing NASA-branded clothes". CNN. Retrieved 2023-10-14.

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from NASA 'Meatball' Logo. United States Government.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.