NASA's classic worm logo returns for first all-American trip to ISS in years: Are you a meatball or a squiggly fan? NASA has brought back its sleek iconic logo, lovingly named the worm for its curvy red font, in time for its first crewed spaceflight using American rockets in almost a decade. Jim Bridenstine, the US space agency’s administrator, announced the resurrection of the graphic this week. It has been splashed across one of SpaceX’s …
@Quantum Leaper "A maned mission can do far more Science than an Uncrewed mission."
Horse puckey son. Manned missions are very limited in scope to the very few trips we've have to the Moon (although we'd already had regolith reruned to Earth via a lander, and there's a long list of non-manned missions), plus Skylab, Mir and ISS time. Manned missions have told us nothing about Mars, nor any of the other celestial bodies probes have visited. We've been further, and done far more, sans meatsacks.
Manned missions have definitely told us nothing about Mars - since we haven't been there. 50 years later, we are still learning science from the Moon ones.
Any manned trip to Mars is by definition long term and somewhat self sustaining - if for no other reason than planetary alignment. The amount of science meat bags could collect on a trip is absolutely mind blowing.
Had the Apollo 13 mission been un-manned then it would have probably been passing Pluto this week, yes, theoretically more science but with no way to get the science back because that wasn't in the design.
But you have a point, had the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria been uncrewed then it would be a different world today.
First time I saw the meatball logo I was reminded of the Blake's 7 logo.
My understanding was the "arrow" in the Blakes7 logo was meant as an intentional swipe at Star Trek's Starfleet emblem. In fact, the United Earth Space Probe Agency emblem looks even more like the B7 logo.
We need a SpaceX logo in hulkbusters font because they are really crushing it with SN3.
When I was a kid (and I suspect age may be a significant factor in our logo preference here), the worm undeniably said Heading Into the New and Bold Future [1], without a doubt, so I have a particular soft spot for it.
At the same time, the meatball has a definite classic mission patch look to it.
So, may I suggest an addendum to the style guide?
If you can stitch it to something := meatball.
If you can stick it on something := worm.
[1] Of course, it now looks like a very 1970s version of the future, but the future always does, won't it?
I had a black mug with the NASA worm logo in gold - awesome (although you couldn't microwave it) I bought it at the Kennedy Space Centre.
Sadly the mug was broken recently.
A contractor friend of mine, Trevor, once asked me "Cool, where did you get that from?"
I replied "Nasa". We both smiled.
Sadly Trevor died a few years later.
RIP Trevor.
RIP Nasa mug.
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/10/31
(I'm totally allowed to post this, I've bought the "Complete" books !)
I'm more of a "wormer" myself, but I'm almost a boomer and 70's stuff kind of hit a chord. That being said the meatball with the orbiting spermatozoon is also cool, "Jetsons' style".
This post has been deleted by its author
....and another six as a contractor. The only day I felt lower about the place than the days we lost Challenger and Columbia were when I read the "No meatballs with worms and no worms with meatballs" (that is, don't mix old and new letterhead and envelopes) memo from Hindquarters. That was how trivial and mean-spirited the agency's management had become under Smilin' Dan Goldin. (To give the devil his due, his "Faster, Better, Cheaper" push for robotic spacecraft was a good idea for science, no matter how much it was opposed by the stodgy geezers of the day with "Which two out of three do you want?")
I get the impression that Mr. Bridenstine wants to associate NASA in the public mind with exploration, adventure, discovery, and the future — which is a lot of what attracted public favor in the 1960s. If he can actually get an agency that is mired in "governmental" bureaucracy in a way it never was sixty years ago to produce excitement, NASA will have earned the right to wear the worm logo again.
Nothing mean spirited or trivial about it - it's very bad communcation to use two different logos on one thing. Shouldn't use two diffferent logos at the same time either.
Brand identity has knock on effects. Using two logos clearly displays that the organisation is NOT a single integrated, coordinated entity.
I worked with the ESA team that did the original european camera on Hubble
When it had its little optical problem there was an urgent push to release some pretty pictures to show it was still usable.
They press releases had both the Nasa logo and ESA logo. But printed the same width the square ESA logo looked bigger than the rectangular Nasa and so Nasa blocked the publication until they reached an agreement.
If only they had made small modifications to the worm logo so that all the letters join up.
Why?
Because you could then practice moving a metal loop through the letters without touching and try not to get a shock! Now try doing that in space.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Wire-Loop-Game/
Sherlock icon, because that is not pipe tobacco.
A friend, back in the late '70s - early '80s had a disposable cigarette lighter that he had apparently bought on a tour of the Cape. It was lying on the coffee table one day and, curious about it and not being familiar with the worm logo yet, I had to ask him what VSVN was.
I'm actually from the Space Coast, I lived there for about 30 years, and I've never liked the Worm Logo. It sucked then and still sucks now. When they brought the meatball back (mostly to cover up the Bicentennial Star on the VAB, more than 20 years after 1976) it was a great day. The meatball looks much better, the Worm looked like something a Federal Agency would come up with to look "sci-fi" and "cool"
The Meat Ball represented the dream for those of us who remember the early days and watched he Moon Landing live for the very first time it had ever been seen by man kind. the worm is the symbol of pissing it all away.
"we used to be able to put a man on the moon. so why can't we do ..."
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
