After 60 years of space flight patches, here are some of our favorites

As such, there's a rich tradition of space mission patches to draw from, and we thought we'd share some of our favorites from the past decades.

Apollo 11

The first human mission to land on the moon is one of the few NASA mission patches to do so not contain the names of the crew members, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. This was a conscious choice by the crew, who wanted the world to understand that they were traveling to the moon for all of humanity.

Another NASA astronaut, Jim Lovell, suggested that the bald eagle could be the focus of the patch. Collins traced the eagle from a National Geographic children's magazine and added an olive branch to symbolize the mission's peaceful intentions.

The result is a clear symbol of the United States leading humanity into another world. It's simple and powerful.

Skylab rescue mission

Skylab was NASA's first space station, launched into orbit after the final Apollo moon landing in 1972. From May 1973 to February 1974, three different crews occupied the space station, which was launched into orbit by a modified Saturn V rocket.

Due to some problems with leaking thrusters on the Apollo spacecraft that brought the second crew to Skylab in 1973, NASA rushed to mount a “rescue mission” as a contingency. In this rescue scenario, astronauts Vance Brand and Don Lind would have flown to the station and brought Alan Bean, Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott back into an Apollo capsule specially configured for five people.

Ultimately, NASA decided that the crew could return to Earth in the failed Apollo spacecraft, using only half of the vehicle's thrusters. So Brand and Lind never flew the rescue mission. But we got a pretty awesome patch out of the deal.