On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the spacecraft Sputnik 1 into space, unknowingly marking the beginning of the space age. In the United States, feeling that they were falling far behind in space exploration, they quickly established the NASA just eight months later. Throughout the 60s, there was no other topic of conversation in the country, especially after they reached the moon. However, Neil Armstrong and his team did it with a logo painted on the rocket that, to be generous, not everyone liked.

The meatballs go to space

James Modarelli, one of the workers of the government organization, created in 1959 the emblem that we all recognize as NASA and that they knew there, in a very unceremonious way, as “the meatball”. But the truth is that, as much as it was not liked at the time, from a marketing point of view it is perfect because it has everything: the stars represent space, the red V represents aeronautics, the circular orbit around the name represents space travel, and its round shape represents a planet. It is definitely well thought out.

But in 1975, they decided it was time to end “the meatball” and switch to a more modern logo: the agency turned to what was called “the worm”, a red logo in which only the word “NASA” was written without the horizontal bars of the A. They tried, yes, but nobody liked it too much, but the insistence on not returning to the original logo made it last until 1992.

They had to accept it: people liked the meatball, it represented the best days of the organization and, in fact, it has become the official logo of the NASA since then, even though they have different icons for each of their projects. 65 years later, Modarelli’s work is still relevant. By the way, the author retired in 1979 and lived until 2002, enough to see his icon where it should be: in the spotlight.