Who else has a space flight patch collection?

I have all of the Apollo patches, including an 8" “Apollo A” and the NASA “meatball”. I also have many of the Shuttle patches from the Approach and Landing Tests, through the missions I took part in, and many from subsequent flights (the latest being from a couple of years ago). And of course I have the Shuttle triangle in 3", 4" and 8" versions.

I may even have some Gemini patches, but I’ve lost track. I’ll have to look.

Who else collects space patches?

[sub]FWIW, I also have a large collection of Navy squadron patches.[/sub]

I have (somewhere) the Mercury patches and some of the Apollo patches. I have a NASA (meatball) hat. The only shuttle patch I have is the basic patch from befor flights of the shuttle.

Yipper, me too.

Patches, stickers, pins, pens, hats, t-shirts, patches, etc…

Manned and unmanned mission stuffesses

Not just US, I have some USSR stuff, too. Looking forward to getting Chinese and Indian stuff…

I still have my cobalt-blue windbreaker with the really ugly (and badly done) silkscreen of the Shuttle on the back. Space Shuttle Support Team members could buy them. The Space Shuttle Support Team patch is on it, although I have an extra patch in the collection.

Oh yeah, I also have a nice Columbia (brand) jacket with “NASA/Dryden Flight Research Center” embroidered on it. Unfortunaltely, the gift shop closed down after 9/11.

This is a side of you I haven’t heard anything about Johnny. What, when, where, how??? Please enlighten me. I feel so out of the loop.

I had a very minor role. We would get the rawinsonde data from the air force and process it into a format, then transfer it to JSC. The Shuttle could be forced to land at any time, and JSC needed the weather data for Edwards AFB at intervals throughout the day and night so they could make a decision to land at Edwards (the primary landing site at the time), Florida, or someplace else. (They were getting weather information from all over.) The cool thing was that I’d take the graveyard shift as often as I could, so when the Shuttle came in I could leave Ridley Mission Control and go over to the FAA hill to watch the landing. The only bad thing was that there are two very large hangars that obscure the Shuttle’s stopping point on the runway.

I started sending the rawinsonde data on STS-2. I got a nice certificate (like everyone else), and I got Engle and Truly to autograph it. For STS-3 we all got a letter with a mission patch stapled to it. Whenever we’d get something like that I’d put it in a notebook. (It’s up in Washington in storage.)

My “shining moment” happened when the transfer program stopped working for some reason. JSC needs the weather data. If the program is broken we have to go down to NASA and get the paper printouts, photocopy them onto 8-1/2x11 sheets, and fax them to Houston. Seemed like a pain in the butt (we never had to do it). Anyway, we had a little time so I looked at the program that was written in BASIC. I put STOP statements here and there so that I knew how far the program got until it crashed. Eventually I found the problem (I don’t remember what it was), fixed it, and we were able to send the data just in time. (That is, just in time to avoid having to fax it.)

As I said, I had a very minor role on the Space Shuttle Support Team. Nothing really “mission critical”. All I did was send weather data. But it was fun. I liked having just a little piece of the action. The certificates and patches were cool. I left Edwards in 1985, and after that my participation has just been watching the Shuttle on teevee.