STS-73

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USA:s flagga

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Författare/Upphovsman: Pascal (Flickr user: pasukaru76), Licens: CC0
Vostok spacecraft replica at the Technik Museum Speyer, Germany.

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The crew patch of STS-73, the second flight of the United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-2), depicts the Space Shuttle Columbia in the vastness of space. In the foreground are the classic regular polyhedrons that were investigated by Plato and later Euclid. The Pythagoreans were also fascinated by the symmetrical three-dimensional objects whose sides are the same regular polygon. The tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron, and the icosahedron were each associated with the Natural Elements of that time: fire (on this mission represented as combustion science); Earth (crystallography), air and water (fluid physics). An additional icon shown as the infinity symbol was added to further convey the discipline of fluid mechanics. The shape of the emblem represents a fifth polyhedron, a dodecahedron, which the Pythagoreans thought corresponded to a fifth element that represented the cosmos.

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STS-74 Mission Insignia

• The STS-74 crew patch depicts the orbiter Atlantis docked to the Russian Space Station Mir. The central focus is on the Russian-built docking module, drawn with shading to accentuate its pivotal importance to both STS-74 and the NASA-Mir Program. The rainbow across the horizon represents the Earth's atmosphere, the thin membrane protecting all nations, while the three flags across the bottom show those nations participating in STS-74: Russia, Canada, and the United States. The sunrise is symbolic of the dawn of a new era in NASA space flight , that of International Space Station construction.

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Crew of the Space Shuttle mission STS-73. NASA photo STS073-S-002 taken July 1995. :On the front row, left to right, are Albert Sacco Jr., payload specialist; Kent V. Rominger, pilot; Michael E. Lopez-Alegria, mission specialist. On the back row are, left to right, Catherine G. Coleman, mission specialist; Kenneth D. Bowersox, commander; Fred W. Leslie, payload specialist; and Kathryn C. Thornton, payload commander.

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STS-69 Mission Insignia

Designed by the mission crew members, the patch for STS-69 symbolizes the multifaceted nature of the flight's mission. The primary payload, the Wake Shield Facility (WSF), is represented in the center by the astronaut emblem against a flat disk. The astronaut emblem also signifies the importance of human beings in space exploration, reflected by the planned space walk to practice for International Space Station (ISS) activities and to evaluate space suit design modifications. The two stylized Space Shuttles highlight the ascent and entry phases of the mission. Along with the two spiral plumes, the stylized Space Shuttles symbolize a NASA first, the deployment and recovery on the same mission of two spacecraft (both the Wake Shield Facility and the Spartan). The constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor represent the astronomy objectives of the Spartan and International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker (IEH) payload. The two constellations also symbolize the talents and dedication of the support personnel who make Space Shuttle missions possible.