Space Mission Patches - Apollo/Soyuz Patch

American Crew:
Thomas P. Stafford
Vance D. Brand
Donald K. "Deke" Slayton

Dates:
15-24 July 1975

Soviet Crew:
Alexei Leonov
Valeri Kubasov

Dates:
15-21 July 1975

Artist:
Jean Pinataro

Apollo Soyuz
Test Project

This is the official American crew patch for the Apollo-Soyuz flight, though the Soviet crew also wore this patch on the flight. The Soviet crew had their own patch which they wore in addition.

[apso-ap1]
This is my own re-creation of Jean Pinataro's original design, based on the black & white scan provided by the JSC History Department, and a color sketch from Jean Pinataro.

The ASTP patch was designed by Jean Pinataro of North American Rockwell, the prime contractor for the Apollo CSM. It was selected by the crew from an industry-wide competition. Pinataro's initial version of the ASTP patch (shown at left) was submitted by JSC Director Chris Kraft for approval in May 1974, but was disapproved by NASA Headquarters, with the explanation that "since this is a significant international project ... perhaps a patch depicting more of the international significance might merit further consideration." In mid-June the same patch, without change, was again submitted by Kraft, stating that while the crew had reconsidered the design, they felt that it did, in fact, reflect the international flavor of the flight.

In August, the design was firmly refused, with an offer "to provide funds from the NASA Artist Program for the crew to engage an artist of their choice to help develop a suitable design."

Under quite restrictive direction from the astronaut office, Pinataro re-designed the patch, with a central vignette derived from Robert McCall's 1974 painting of the subject. She recalls: "[the crew] called all the shots on it, like how large to make the vehicles, where to put the sun, and how far the rays should extend, definitely not to the earth, etc. I recall being annoyed that the astronaut's directions were so explicit that I was unable to connect the three elements in that central area." In December this significantly re-designed image was submitted for approval, which was finally granted.

The expression of reasons for disapproval of the first design seem to me rather vague, especially so when one considers the design that was eventually approved. The two versions have many design elements in common -- the biggest change is the removal of the national flag motifs. Perhaps the removal of national identification design elements, thus eliminating the political overtones, is what NASA headquarters was seeking. Personally, I find it rather amusing to observe that the Soviet crew patch is based on the very design elements that were removed from the American patch.

"APOLLO" and the American astronaut names appear in Latin script, while "SOYUZ" and the Soviet cosmonaut names appear in Cyrillic. The 3 stars in the blue field, and the 2 stars in the red field, represent the American and Soviet crews, respectively.

The ASTP project patch, created by a Russian artist, was carefully designed to eliminate any bias by having APOLLO and SOYUZ appear on opposite sides of the patch, which had no inherent up/down or left/right orientation.

Robert McCall painting
[apso-aa1]
The painting by Robert McCall which clearly served as the inspiration for the central image of the final ASTP patch. The cross-like rays from the sun were eliminated, due to concern that they might be misinterpreted as having religious overtones.


[apso-aw1] NASA photo ID: S75-20361 Taken: 27 Feb 1975	[apso-bc1] Beta cloth version of the Apollo-Soyuz patch. 88mm w × 89mm h

[apso-em1] AB Emblem embroidered Apollo-Soyuz crew patch. The gold border on this patch has metallic threads. 103mm dia	[apso-em2dks] A special AB Emblem embroidered Apollo-Soyuz crew patch. Apparently a set of these 4-1/2-inch patches was made for the American ASTP crew, similar to those made for Apollo 17. This one has Slayton's initials, "DKS", embroidered in yellow thread at the bottom of the patch. This patch was auctioned as lot #878 in the Fall 2003 Aurora Galleries Space & Aviation Memorabilia Auction (and fetched $1200!).

[apso-em3] Lion Brothers embroidered Apollo-Soyuz crew patch. The crew names run together without any gap between Slayton and Leonov. 101mm dia.	The Lion Brothers hallmark, the letters "ASTP", can be seen above Leonov's name in the cloud patterns.

The official ASTP project patch, designed by a Soviet artist to avoid any bias toward either side. NASA photo S74-17843.


This photo of Valeriy Kubasov during the ASTP mission shows that the Soviets wore two mission patches -- one of American design, and one of Soviet -- as well as a Soviet crest and flag. NASA Photo ID AST-5-305.	[soap-em1] An original Soviet crew patch. It appears that this patch consisted of a base of red felt, with the remaining colors embroidered on that base. "VII-1975" at the bottom refers to the date of the flight, July 1975. My thanks to Luc van den Abeelen for this image.

[soap-em2] A reproduction of the Soviet crew patch. This patch shows signs of wear, so it may be an older repro, perhaps made in the Soviet Union. 114mm w × 114mm h	[soap-em3] A reproduction of the Soviet crew patch. According to John Bisney this was manufactured by Stewart Aviation of the UK. Not very faithful to the original design, this one is all-embroidered, has straight instead of curved sides, and the bottom side is too narrow. 115mm w × 116mm h

ASTP Medallion
The Manned Flight Awareness medallion created for ASTP used the American crew patch for the obverse design. The reverse reads, in English and Russian, "This medallion contains metal from both Apollo and Soyuz that joined together in the first International manned space mission on July 15-24, 1975."