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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

NASA's new rocket boldy carries a little Star Trek design

The following neat story about Ares I-X comes from some stories on Robert Pearlman’s excellent website collectSPACE.com.

Positioned under a large American flag decal and below the NASA insignia on the side of NASA’s Ares I-X test flight are three emblems designed for the space agency by graphic artist Mike Okuda, who is perhaps best known for his design work on the "Star Trek" television series..

As a technical consultant and scenic artist, Okuda has designed the computer displays screens, some spaceships and other technology for four TV shows and six feature films, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise. He was recognized for his work with three Emmy nominations."

Though not the first of his emblems to fly on a real spacecraft, Ares I-X will be the first vehicle to fly emblazoned with Okuda's Constellation, Ares and Ares I-X logos.

"I can't tell you how proud it makes me to help represent all the men and women who haveMike Okuda worked so hard on this program and this flight test," shared Okuda in an e-mail to collectSPACE. "Honestly, I never expected to see any of these emblems on actual flight hardware, and it was a real thrill when I first learned that they'd be on this vehicle."

While the other logos may go on to fly on other rockets, at the bottom of the line of emblems is the blue, red, yellow, gold and white insignia that Okuda specifically designed for Ares I-X.

"The emblem is an attempt to illustrate the tremendous propulsive power required for space flight," he said of his design, which features a view from below Ares I-X as it lifts off. "[It] is intended to resemble the Ares project logo. However, the Ares I-X mission patch uses a circular background shape, to distinguish it from the rounded triangle used for the various [other] Constellation program emblems."

You can read more about Okuda at collectSPACE.com and on Wiikipedia.


http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2009/10/nasas-new-rocket-boldy-carries-a-little-star-trek-design.html

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