Question about Columbia mission patch

By now, we’re all familiar with the mission patch of the NASA mission STS-107. Spaceship-shaped, with the names of the astronauts around the base (may they rest in peace).

My question is about the middle of the patch. It is three lines going through a hoop with a star at the top. The middle line takes on the form of cursive letters which appear to read “MG.” What do these letters stand for?

For the record…

http://www.decaturco.k12.in.us/space/spaceimages/sts107-s-001.jpg

Or it could be “bw” if looked at from the other way.

Stand for Micro Gravity.

of course stand = stands, and here is the cite MG

Just to clarify, as it says in whuckfistle’s link, it’s not an M but the lower case greek letter mu, which represents ‘micro’ in SI.

I was just about to say that it looked more like a “mu”. It’s a pretty interesting design. Its a shame people will learn to recognise it because of this…

Only here could I find the exact same obscure question I’d wondered about this weekend plus a knowledgable answer. Thank you.

It’s probably not off a uniform. More likely one of the ones they tote up for museums.

I don’t know what that means, but I believe the astronauts did wear this. Although I’m not sure. Did Armstong, Aldrin, and Collins wear the eagle-on-the-moon thing?

i think what was meant was that this particular patch was probably not sewn into a uniform, but was an “extra” one, part of a cache of extras that are distributed to museums, etc. after the mission.

I believe that the OP was refering to the mission patch in general and not the one photographed in a grassy field in Texas. Bosda and ataraxy22 were probabaly refering to the later which appears to have never been sewn on a uniform.

A beautiful design. A very, very sad end.

BTW, mission patches are always designed by the crew.

Yes, I was referring to the actual patch, the one Zagadka linked to. I have seen pictures of the Columbia crew wearing this on their orange suits, and the design was sewn on their shirts. Does anyone have a link to the other patch that is being mentioned?

You can buy the patches from NASA’s online store, $4.50 each. The same ones are selling on Ebay now for $80+ each. Too bad people gotta take advantage of tragic events to scam other people.

NASA has an online store?

All I could find is http://store.yahoo.com/spacestore/stmispat93.html

whose maine page asks

I was wondering how that particular patch escaped without a scratch… Any ideas on that?

It “escaped” the same way millions of pieces of paper escaped the WTC catastrophe. It is a light piece of material that was ejected by “the air pushed in front of an explosive blast” (can’t remember the technical term - shockwave, maybe?).

No surprise and definitely no miracle.

I think it’s the same patch, but what they mean is that besides those sewn on the flightsuits and uniforms, they carry a box of both specs-authentic and replica patches/pins meant specifically as display items/memorabilia that have “gone-to-space.”