FIRST ALL WOMEN SPACEWALK T-Shirt

Late 2018 when the news was announced that Anne McClain and Christina Koch would perform an EVA together (the first in history) my wife Lynn turned to me and said “this needs its own patch.” I agreed. That spacewalk planned for March of 2019 was canceled when it was realized that a second EMU was not yet configured to size. To do so would delay the spacewalk so it was decided to substitute Nick Hague for Anne McClain and complete the task on schedule. NASA was vilified for poor planning. So when it was announced later that Koch and Jessica Meir would spacewalk together. We revived our patch design. The emblem is worn on the right shoulder of U.S. spacesuits used in Extravehicular Activity (EVA) or spacewalks. The original patch displayed three stars, one for each U.S. space program that included spacewalks (Gemini, Apollo, Skylab). Two more stars were added for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. Hamilton Sundstrand, a manufacturer of EVA suits life support equipment, designed this patch because company logos are not allowed on NASA equipment. That design, by NASA engineer Fred Keune, is based on Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" depiction of the ideal proportions of the human body. The human form inside a circle and square. I changed the square into a hexagon to pay tribute to the six person ISS crew. But the square is not entirely discarded because of the shape of the ISS solar arrays. Lynn suggested we turn the circle into the symbol of woman. The hexagon and circle also evoke the Cupola on the ISS. We added a sixth star to illustrate the historic nature of this EVA. The “8-Ball” represents the nickname of the 2013 class of NASA Astronauts of which Christina Koch and Jessica Meir belong. Finally supporting this spacewalk in Mission Control were three other women professionals: Sandy Fletcher was the EVA officer in the MCC. Astronaut Stephanie Wilson was the Ground IV. Bridget Scheib was the EVA Task MPSR. As their contributions were not as well known to the public, their names are “ghost stitched” into the ISS solar arrays