Constellation, Ares I-X patches designed by Star Trek artist Michael Okuda - Ares I-X

In one way, Ares I-X and the Constellation program have already gone where no NASA program has gone before: they've got what have to be the coolest mission patches in the history of manned spaceflight.

const.jpgAnd if these mission patches have a somewhat familiar feel to them — especially for you Star Trek fans out there — well, there's a good reason for that: NASA hired one of Star Trek's graphic designers to develop them.

Hawaii native Michael Okuda, who started working his way up through the Star Trek ranks with set work on the 1986 movie "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," has actually been at work for many years designing mission patches and other program patches for NASA, efforts for which he was recognized with the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal last July. The space shuttle Atlantis astronauts toiling to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in last May's STS-125 mission did so with Okuda-designed patches on their spacesuits.

"I love the style of military unit or squadron emblems," Okuda told reporter Dwayne Day in a 2008 interview for The Space Review. "That wonderful sense of bravado, since that's such a big part of NASA's culture."

That taste of military bravado is certainly evident in Okuda's Star Trek work, and there's a certain sense of it in his Constellation program patch designs as well. But the difference in tone in the Constellation designs is palpable, and reflects a purpose beyond simply conveying team pride: to instill a certain sense of wonder, a thrill of space exploration to a public being asked to buy into a new space program.


http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2009/10/constellation_ares_i-x_patches.html