[NASA] “The Meatball’ Turns 65

[SpaceMan 0]

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Painters work on the official NASA insignia, nicknamed “the meatball,” on the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 29, 2020.

NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA’s official logo, nicknamed the

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on July 15, 2024. The insignia dates back to 1959, when the 

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 (NACA) metamorphosed into an agency that would advance both space and aeronautics: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. After a NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center illustrator’s design was chosen for the new agency’s official seal, the head of Lewis’ Research Reports Division,

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, was asked by the executive secretary of NACA to design a logo that could be used for less formal purposes.

In the design, the sphere represents a planet, the stars represent space, the red chevron is a wing representing aeronautics (the latest design in hypersonic wings at the time the logo was developed), and then there is an orbiting spacecraft going around the wing. The red, white, and blue design, which includes 

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, became the official logo of the ******* States’ new space agency in 1959.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

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