Underwire Taking the Pulse of Pop Culture Star Trek Designer to Receive NASA Public Service Medal

A long-time Star Trek designer is being recognized by NASA for his longtime contributions to the look of the U.S. space program.

Michael Okuda will receive the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal for his work on multiple exploration missions. According to the space program, the medal recognizes “exceptional contributions to the mission of NASA.”

A veteran art designer for various incarnations of Star Trek (including The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and six Trek feature films) Okuda did extensive design work for NASA’s Project Constellation, including program emblems for the Constellation, Ares, Orion and Altair programs, along with the mission patch for the upcoming Ares I-X development test flight.

Working with the most recent crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis, he also designed the mission patch for the successful STS-125 mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He even did the unofficial Space Rescue team emblem for the STS-400 mission that would have shot up if the repair had gone wrong.

Okuda worked extensively on the Star Trek: Remastered series that brought modern visual effects to the 1960s’ original series episodes and was credited with taking the time to preserve the spirit of those classic effects while cleaning up the look of the shows.

Over the years, Okuda did design work for Johnson Space Center, the Kennedy Space Center and the NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He also worked with Ground Control officer Bill Foster to design designed the “Spaceflight Memorial Patch,” honoring the fallen astronauts of Apollo 1 and the lost Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews.

Okuda will receive the medal at a ceremony July 9 at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.

“For a kid who grew up watching the Apollo astronauts walking on the moon,” Okuda said from his home in Los Angeles, “this is incredibly cool.”

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