Author Topic: The return of "Meatball".  (Read 35266 times)

Offline carmelo

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 388
  • Liked: 5
  • Likes Given: 0
The return of "Meatball".
« on: 03/20/2012 06:02 pm »
When did the "meatball" NASA logo come back on astronauts' flight suits? Was in 1983? And in that period, the meatball was a official logo?

Offline Blackstar

  • Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15289
  • Liked: 7828
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #1 on: 03/20/2012 07:21 pm »
The meatball came back in the early 1990s. Dan Goldin ordered it. He hated the worm logo.

Offline simonbp

  • Science Guy
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7138
  • Liked: 314
  • Likes Given: 183
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #2 on: 03/20/2012 08:28 pm »
It was 1998, when John Glenn went on his joyride. I distinctly recall how strange the orbiter looked with the big blue meatball.

Offline carmelo

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 388
  • Liked: 5
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #3 on: 03/20/2012 11:46 pm »
Incorrect,the meatball,togheter the worm is on astronauts flight suits until STS-9

http://www.spacepatches.nl/sts_mis/sts9crew.jpg

Offline deaville

  • Full Member
  • **
  • Posts: 241
  • UK
  • Liked: 26
  • Likes Given: 1
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #4 on: 03/21/2012 09:54 am »
A fuller discussion on the 'meatball' and the 'worm' can be found here -

www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000924.html
« Last Edit: 03/21/2012 09:14 pm by deaville »
Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear bright until they speak.

Offline agman25

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 452
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #5 on: 03/21/2012 12:58 pm »
I've often wondered about the similarities between the NASA "meatball" and the "Spaceship and Sun" logo of the Galactic empire in Asimov's Foundation Series. Maybe one inspired the other.

Offline JayP

  • Member
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 788
  • Liked: 4
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #6 on: 03/21/2012 03:05 pm »
I've often wondered about the similarities between the NASA "meatball" and the "Spaceship and Sun" logo of the Galactic empire in Asimov's Foundation Series. Maybe one inspired the other.

More that they were designed in the same era. Logos and symbols have fashion trends just like clothing and hairstyles.
« Last Edit: 03/21/2012 03:05 pm by JayP »

Offline Blackstar

  • Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15289
  • Liked: 7828
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #7 on: 03/21/2012 05:32 pm »
I've often wondered about the similarities between the NASA "meatball" and the "Spaceship and Sun" logo of the Galactic empire in Asimov's Foundation Series. Maybe one inspired the other.

More that they were designed in the same era. Logos and symbols have fashion trends just like clothing and hairstyles.

Yeah, that's it. Actually, if you compare NASA's seal to many other government ones at the time you would see broad similarities. They all tended to go for the circle with the name around the edge and then something inside.

Here's the seal for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (I happen to have this same seal in my office. It's heavy. I never bothered to figure out what it might be worth.)

More in the next post.

Offline Blackstar

  • Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15289
  • Liked: 7828
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #8 on: 03/21/2012 05:38 pm »
There's a good website somewhere (assuming that it is still up) that is a passionate defense of the NASA "worm" logo by a graphic designer. The guy made some good points, noting that there was a federal regulation requiring that agency logos be distinctive and easily recognizable, and the worm logo was and the meatball logo was not (because it looks like many other agency logos).

The worm logo was certainly a product of its time, early 1970s graphic design. You can find similar fonts from that era and the use of tubular shapes in lots of aspects of graphic design.

Personally, I think that NASA should have merged the two. Apparently graphic artist Dan Gauthier (who died about a decade ago) came up with the merging of the two for this patch. I wish the NASA name was in a different color, but I kinda like this.

Offline Blackstar

  • Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15289
  • Liked: 7828
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #9 on: 03/21/2012 05:39 pm »

Offline Blackstar

  • Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15289
  • Liked: 7828
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #10 on: 03/21/2012 05:42 pm »
I cannot easily find the very interesting and informative discussion of the worm logo that I remembered, but here is a decent discussion of the worm logo:

http://www.logodesignlove.com/nasa-logo

It has this interesting anecdote:


"Danne remembers NASA’s administrator, Dr James Fletcher, and deputy administrator, Dr George Low, having the following exchange:

Fletcher: “I’m simply not comfortable with those letters, something is missing.”
Low: “Well, yes, the cross stroke is gone from the letter A.”
Fletcher: “Yes, and that bothers me.”
Low: “Why?”
Fletcher: (long pause) “I just don’t feel we are getting our money’s worth!”"
« Last Edit: 03/21/2012 06:21 pm by Blackstar »

Offline MEH53

  • Member
  • Posts: 10
  • Seattle, WA
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #11 on: 03/21/2012 05:59 pm »
Hi, you're maybe thinking of this discussion from 2009 on the NASAWatch forum, posted by "Joey Ponthieux". Here it is in it's entirety:

"I've never posted here but I guess there is a first time for everything and this could not be more appropriate. I'm a graphic artist/animator with over 20 years experience in animation and 5 years in printing and broadcast television prior to that. Prior to that, as a high school student I enthusiastically followed NASA's endeavors with the Space Shuttle, Hubble, and other activities. But my first memories regarding NASA goes all the way back to the Moon shots in the early 70's while an elementary school student.

In a nutshell I'm just young enough to remember the Worm but old enough to remember the Meatball in its use at a time prior to Goldin's full resurrection of the Meatball in the 1992 time frame. Personal opinions aside for the moment, historical precedent sets the Meatball as the Worm's predecessor and therefore sets the Meatball's age. It cannot be argued that the Worm looks older or feels older than the Meatball because it is not. It can neither be argued that the Meatball looks more modern that the Worm, because modern is set by its age, pop-culture, and how we perceive modern style at the time something is conceived or created. I know that a lot of people are not interested in hearing that pop-culture drives modernity but it is an unfortunate fact of life.

In a nutshell, The Worm came after the Meatball and the Meatball was resurrected after the Worm, so it's a case of Forward to The Past as opposed to Back to The Future. Whatever reason this all occurred I am not certain. I know that rumors regarding Goldin's reasons for this abound, but Goldin's reasons are no longer relevant to this discussion. What was done is done. But that does not change the fact that there are good reasons for both logos as pertaining to graphics styled and standards or pop-culture acceptance.

The Good
The NASA Meatball is a color logo. These colors as well as the icons within the logo have meaning and they stand out. It contains many iconic elements relevant to NASA. It is not a frivolous logo by any stretch, meaning it does not posses anything which is irrelevant within its makeup. Further, it loosely mimics a monument on site here at Langley which is almost as old as NASA itself. This, unfortunately, does a lot to date the Meatball's style even older than most people might have realized since there appears to be roots beyond that of just being a “logo”.

The Worm is single color. It is inexpensive to reproduce. It can be printed as black and white with much ease which ironically is not always the same as being single color, a single color can be any color, but monochromatic printing has special requirements to maintain high quality within a logo’s reproduction. It can also be printed as small as 6(six) points high without losing it's detail(a notably significant feature of this logo which rivals the abilities of most modern logos). It is an extremely simple and modern logo(note that I did NOT say modern typeface as this argument over whether serif or san-serif typefaces are modern has been raging several millennium). It is an instantly recognizable entity from a distance.


The Bad
The Meatball is a color logo. It cannot be easily printed over many printing conditions because of its strict color requirements. When printed in black & white it loses much of it's character, largely due to the fact the red and blue of the logo are hard to replicate correctly in monochrome. This is a result of saturation and value levels being too close to each other resulting in the requirement of an outline logo in single-color. It is extraordinarily complicated as an icon. It contains too many, or at least a lot, of elements which complicate the logo design. This is not to say the elements are not relevant, it’s just that they produce an over-complex icon, when icons by their nature, should be as simple as possible. It is not recognizable from a distance. In fact it often looks like a mish-mash blue blob when viewed at a distance and especially at an extreme angle. Why? Because it is too complex. The Meatball is not a modern logo as benchmarked by current times and pop-culture.

The Worm is single color. It possesses little to no chromatic appeal.


Now, while both logos are instantly recognizable, and both have direct and sustainable appeal, both also have their advantages and disadvantages. The design disadvantages to the Meatball greatly outweigh the design disadvantages of the Worm. In general the Worm is more modern primarily because it's style is driven by it's age compared to the age of the Meatball. Some 40 years old versus 60 or more for the Meatball. Why? Because we don’t perceive modern styles by any set of established style rules. We perceived modern styles by what is popular at that time. These rules change, sometimes dramatically depending upon the era because modern pop-culture dictates it. For example review some of the most recognizable, popular, and modern logo styles of the last 2 decades, especially as they relate to science or science fiction in pop-culture and you find this to be fact. Most of these most modern logos in recent decades, especially those which suggest space or the future, such "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", have san-serif or mildly seriffed fonts. In fact both "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" have remarkable similarities to the NASA Worm. San-serif style with a stylized continuing string or worm-flow design. A coincidence, I doubt it. Pop-culture sets the standard, and NASA is as much a factor in today's pop-culture as either "Star Wars" or "Star Trek".

The point? Well first my opinion. Given all of the excellent positive design reasons for the Worm logo, and all the poor design reasons for the Meatball(that's not a criticism of NASA, that’s a criticism of design principles and application) the Worm logo when it was created made a lot of sense, and it still does. It's my opinion, as a professional graphic artist and for all the design and modern popular culture reasons listed above, and there are more reasons than this to be sure, that the Worm should have never been abandoned. Having said that, I do also realize the value of the Meatball logo as it relates to NASA. The Meatball is an excellent example of how pop-culture can and does turn good design principles on its head. Retaining that logo in some way should have been in NASA's highest priority back in the 70’s. Yes I know, it's easy to judge in hindsight, but there are good, real, and extremely positive reasons from the vantage points of design and popular culture to have retained both logos when the Worm was introduced.

The point is that it never made sense that they did not produce a hybrid logo as illustrated here. It was my first reaction to the resurrection of the Meatball back in the 90s. It's been my opinion to this day. There are just too many highly functional reasons to have a good, simple, clean, highly reproducible, and highly readable logo for NASA. The Meatball can't do these things, the Worm can, could and did. But abandoning the Meatball should have never happened. There's the dilemma."

Joey

...That pretty much sums it up.
"If you can't be good, be colorful"

Offline go4mars

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3748
  • Earth
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 3463
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #12 on: 03/21/2012 08:22 pm »
In 2007 I bought an arm load of black worm logo hats with the golden wings on the brim for friends and family (for Christmas presents), from the  KSC gift shop.  Trouble was, I didn't save one for myself.  I was at the Houston tourist center the next year, and they didn't have them, and the Internet convinced me that they no longer make them.  Does anyone know differently?   Are they out there?

Thanks.
Elasmotherium; hurlyburly Doggerlandic Jentilak steeds insouciantly gallop in viridescent taiga, eluding deluginal Burckle's abyssal excavation.

Offline Skylon

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 431
  • Liked: 20
  • Likes Given: 7
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #13 on: 03/22/2012 12:33 am »
Incorrect,the meatball,togheter the worm is on astronauts flight suits until STS-9

http://www.spacepatches.nl/sts_mis/sts9crew.jpg

Not quite.

ASTP thru STS-6 all have crews sporting just the worm on their right arm. Starting with STS-7 the meatball returned to flight suits, with the worm staying on the right arm.

Near as I can tell, STS-76 was the last time Astronauts walked out with the worm on their right arm. STS-77 the crew wasn't sporting the worm on their pressure suits.

Offline carmelo

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 388
  • Liked: 5
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #14 on: 03/24/2012 08:49 pm »
Incorrect,the meatball,togheter the worm is on astronauts flight suits until STS-9

http://www.spacepatches.nl/sts_mis/sts9crew.jpg

The fact is that from STS-7 (sorry,not STS-9) the meatball come back on the Astronauts flight suit.
http://stellar-views.com/images/STS-7_Ride.jpg
In 1983 the official logo was still the "worm",so who asked for the old logo on flight suits?
John Young?

Offline jaysvw

  • Member
  • Posts: 7
  • Litchfield Park, AZ
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #15 on: 03/28/2012 05:12 am »
Somewhat OT, but I was watching Apollo 13 the other day and noticed that in the suit up scenes, the window behind them has the worm logo on it.  I've seen that movie a dozen times and never noticed that.

Offline MattMason

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1062
  • Space Enthusiast
  • Indiana
  • Liked: 772
  • Likes Given: 2016
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #16 on: 08/18/2015 06:02 pm »
Rather than kicking up a new thread on the insignia's history, here's what appears to be a more comprehensive story of the Worm's selection and demise from the Worm designer's point of view.

http://www.thisisdisplay.org/features/the_nasa_design_program/

(I'm a meatball fan, myself. The worm was always too modernist and never seemed cool.)
"Why is the logo on the side of a rocket so important?"
"So you can find the pieces." -Jim, the Steely Eyed

Offline Ronpur50

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2117
  • Brandon, FL
  • Liked: 1028
  • Likes Given: 1884
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #17 on: 08/18/2015 09:39 pm »
Great article.  And I love the photos of the graphic manual.  I wish I could find a download of that!  I always like the "worm" or "wurm".  It was the first NASA patch and hat I ever bought.  But, I was still happy when the "meatball" returned.
« Last Edit: 08/18/2015 09:40 pm by Ronpur50 »

Offline the_other_Doug

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3010
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Liked: 2191
  • Likes Given: 4620
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #18 on: 08/18/2015 09:55 pm »
To me, the worm was the epitome of ugly.  It looked like they wanted it to appear as if a snail left that logo as a slime trail.  The meatball was proudly worn by every single human being who walked on the Moon; abandoning it seemed like NASA saying they wanted to forget the Apollo era and move on to an era where we would no longer do such immensely historical things.  It said to me, "Mars?  Are you kidding?  You'll be lucky if we ever even fly Shuttle.  Stop dreaming, kid, the time of giant leaps is over."

I hated that.
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline Rocket Science

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10586
  • NASA Educator Astronaut Candidate Applicant 2002
  • Liked: 4548
  • Likes Given: 13523
Re: The return of "Meatball".
« Reply #19 on: 08/18/2015 10:08 pm »
My ancestry is Italian, so its meatballs for me... ;D
"The laws of physics are unforgiving"
~Rob: Physics instructor, Aviator

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
1