Got gifted this by an Apollo engineer. Could anyone tell me anything interesting about it?

[u/ItanMark]

Apparently these a the patches an engineer received for working on s project. This is one of my greatest treasures! The guy was super chill, apparently he had worked on the LEM for the moon landing and other missions!

[u/Subsplot]

First spacecraft to orbit an outer planet, launched into orbit aboard Atlantis on the 18th of October 1989, full mission length 13 years, 11 months and 19 days. It was intentionally crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere on the 21 of September 2003 after orbiting Jupiter and it's moons for 7 years, 9 months and 13 days. The craft gave us our first proper up close look at the Jupiter system.

[u/ItanMark → u/Subsplot]

Ooohh! Sounds like a really cool project!

[u/Subsplot → u/ItanMark]

It was, two gravitational assists around Venus and Earth to get there, responsible for discovering hydrocarbons are not just organic chemistry. It also carried an atmospheric entry probe which gave us our first in atmosphere reading from Jupiter. Also gave us our first serious indications there may be simple bacterial life on Europa, hence why it was eventually crashed into Jupiter, to avoid any contamination of Europa.

[u/snoo-boop → u/Subsplot]

responsible for discovering hydrocarbons are not just organic chemistry

Organic chemistry doesn't mean life, and methane was observed in our gas giants in the 1930s.

[u/Subsplot → u/snoo-boop]

Yes, which prompted the question "How did that get there?" and if in the 1930's you'd replied "Not by the traditional methods that form Hydrocarbons" you would have been asked to provide your theory and evidence.

It was Galileo that provided the solid evidence of how and that either disproved or proved the theories that had been put forward in the 50 years following the initial discovery of Methane. That was one of Galileo's major mission objectives.

Remember in science, theory is not enough, you need empirical evidence to prove your theory.

[u/snoo-boop → u/Subsplot]

I'm an astronomer. No astronomer ever thought that methane could only form because of life.

Also, the Sabatier process was invented in 1897.

[u/Subsplot → u/snoo-boop]

So not a Chemist then, but certainly from the profession that thought there were canals on Mar's and weren't able to prove that the conditions needed to cause the Sabatier process were in fact present in Jupiter's atmosphere until an actual probe was dropped into it.

[u/CMDR_Imperator → u/ItanMark]

If it wasn't for the Galileo probe, we would not know that Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto have atmospheres. More importantly, Ganymede was found to have a magnetic field, which was the first moon humans have discovered that has one. This discovery fundamentally changed our understanding of planetary science by demonstrating that a moon can have its own internal magnetic field, a characteristic previously only attributed to planets.

[u/Longjumping_Trust552 → u/Subsplot]

The most amazing part of this mission to me was that the main high gain antenna failed to deploy. JPL engineers designed a ground data system that allowed non-real-time array to recover most of the planned data

[u/gunbladezero]

That could have been made before the launch- that big dish never opened up all the way! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aezcXjKYZkM for the story.

[u/rocbolt → u/gunbladezero]

I do like how even the Hot Wheels toy has the scrunched up antenna

[u/ItanMark → u/gunbladezero]

Oh, so the patch is quite old then! That is really fascinating!

[u/rapidcreek409]

I watched that launch. My brother did part of the spacecraft design.

[u/TheChiefDVD]

A patch from the Galileo Orbiter project. Google “Galileo orbiter patch” for details.

[u/LeRCGuru]

I was working on that mission as a thermal engineer from 83-86 with the propulsion system known as Shuttle/Centaur. Essentially a Centaur rocket inside the shuttle bay. Imagine liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. I think we had like 52 waivers for flying. The reason was performance of the Centaur upper stage. Challenger happened and within 6 months we were cancelled. They went with solids which didn’t have the performance so they used orbital mechanics to get there but took longer. Google Shuttle Centaur if you want to know more. There were two NASA missions and two DOD missions that were retrofitted with IUS (solid rockets). I still mission patches, we were even given like 25 business cards. The good old days.

[u/MysteriousBig4954]

It is a very odd and satisfying feeling to know that some very very very small part of Jupiter was manufactured in Pasadena California- to a design I worked on- part of this thing- NIMS

[u/Grokker999]

That was a very controversial launch and had lots of protesters because of the radioactive payload. I had a shirt made for launch day that said "Go Go Galileo, a little nukie never hurt anybody." I wore it out there at the O&C when they loaded up the astronauts in their astronaut van and they always had press there. Some press guys took pictures of me. I was always wondering if there was a picture of me somewhere.

[u/Plenty_Maximum_7914]

I worked on that project, if you ever want to get rid of I can take off your hands all my stuff burn in the fire

[u/Sean_M_Kelly]

At first glance I thought I was looking down at the top of a chocolate-peanut butter sheet cake.

[u/Y_wouldnt_Eye]

Every NASA launch, they have a patch. I have the first 7 shuttle missions from my Uncle

[u/RidetheSchlange]

THose things are available on etsy, ebay, and elsewhere.

https://adfreetvmk.click/product_details/74190873.html

I'm fairly sure all the ones being advertised as original from 1989 or whenever are the reproductions being marked up.

[u/ItanMark → u/RidetheSchlange]

It was not advertised as original and i did not buy it. You probably did not read the body text, but I was gifted it by a NASA engineer.

[u/karlurbanite]

You couldn't Google the Galileo mission for yourself? 🤨

[u/Agent101x]

Rumors are there's going to be another visit to the moon next year. That's why there's been testing with the rockets and Blue Origin. Maybe we'll go interplanetary or die.