Official emblem of the Apollo missions

Space Mission
Project Apollo, August 1965

Photographer
NASA / Unidentified Photographer

Photo Description
Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA S-65- 55202” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin

Essay
“The Apollo emblem is a disc circumscribed by a band displaying the words Apollo and NASA. The center disc bears the large letter “A” with the constellation Orion positioned so its three central stars form the bar of the letter. To the right is a sphere of the Earth, with a sphere of the Moon in the upper left portion of the center disc. The face on the Moon represents the mythical God, Apollo. A double trajectory passes behind both spheres and the central stars” (original NASA caption for the photograph).

“Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis, only man can fully evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other men.”
Gus Grissom (Jacobs, p. 129)