Like any
soon-to-be astronaut, Richard Garriott needed a patch to sew onto his spacesuit
and to represent his mission. Unlike those who have launched before him
however, Garriott had a unique source for his insignia's inspiration: his astronaut
father.
"My
inspiration really came from my father's first flight on Skylab," said Garriott
of his father, Owen, who 35 years ago this week lifted off for a 59-day stay
on-board the first U.S. space station. Like his father, Richard Garriott is
destined for an orbiting outpost, the International Space Station (ISS), but
not as a NASA astronaut. A successful video game developer, he has paid about
$30 million to fly as
a spaceflight participant aboard a Russian Soyuz currently scheduled to
launch on Oct. 12 of this year.
So when it
came time to follow the tradition of designing a patch, Garriott saw
similarities between his mission goals and those pioneered by his father, as
was represented by the Skylab II crew emblem.
"The
reason I thought that [the Skylab II emblem] was a particularly suitable patch
to use as a kind of a basis for mine was that it began with an image of
Leonardo da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man'," Garriott told collectSPACE.com,
referring to the renaissance artist's 15th century drawing depicting the
proportion of a man. "That was selected for the Skylab patch for a number
of reasons, most notably because part of what they worked on Skylab was the
study of human physiology."
"Furthermore,
I actually designed this patch in cahoots with my mother, who is a professional
artist," continued Garriott. Unbeknownst to Owen until he arrived on
orbit, an alternate version of the Skylab II patch also flew, this one listing
the names of the crewmen's wives — including Helen-Mary, Richard's mother —
and altering da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" to appear as a similarly-styled
woman.
Whether in
the original male or female form, da Vinci's art is well known for its blending
of science and art, a feature that underscored Garriott's interest in its use.
"I got
my science and technology background from my father, my artistic inclinations
from my mother and if you think of the quintessential high tech art, I would
say that computer games fill that niche pretty darn well and so I really owe my
career to both of my parents."
"Plus
there is even another little echo," revealed Garriott. "Leonardo was
not only a great artist but he was also a great scientist. So my parents,
inspired by that, after they had invested in my first company Origin and after
we sold it, they had public stock [and took] some of that money... and they
went back to their hometown of Enid, Oklahoma where they built Leonardo's
Discovery Warehouse, which is a children's hands-on science and art facility.
The main logo for [that center] is this same image of Leonardo's."
"So,
this patch has a great deal of personal family history imbued in it for
me."
Click here to see Richard
Garriott's personal mission patch at collectSPACE.com.
The
similarities between Garriott's patch and his father's do not end with da
Vinci's drawing. Both share a planetary background.
"Skylab
II included the Earth and in his case, the Sun, behind this image because they
were both doing earth sciences as well as solar research. While I am doing a
bunch of earth sciences, unfortunately I don't get a chance to do much solar
research on the current ISS as it wasn't designed for that purpose," described
Garriott.
"In my
case, I also included the six flags for the nationalities of the six crew
members I'll fly on-board the ISS with."
Garriott,
whose name adorns the base of the patch, will launch with NASA astronaut Mike
Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov. Once at the station, he will meet
U.S. flight engineer Greg Chamitoff, Russian flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and
commander Sergei Volkov.
"'Generation
II' [at the bottom of the patch] is, of course, fairly obvious. It is
reflecting that I am the first second generation American. I'll be flying with
the first second generation Russian, Sergei Volkov,
and we'll return from space together."
Rounding
out the symbolism on his patch is a small logo dividing Garriott's name from
"Generation II".
"And
this small symbol that you see between the two is something called a triscalion.
It's like a little yin and yang symbol but with three parts. It is one of the
principle symbols of my latest game, 'Tabula Rasa'," he described.
"And as Tabula Rasa has been a big part of my life here in preparation for
this flight, as it's a science fiction game about traveling through space, and
I'm about to take my journey into space it seemed like an appropriate piece to
include in this patch."
Garriott
will wear his patch on his Sokol pressure suit for his launch and landing,
alongside a Soyuz TMA-13 crew patch that has yet to be designed. He will also
carry with him patches made from the winning
design of a student competition organized by the Challenger Center for
Space Education.
advertisement
