Apollo 11 mission emblem – an eagle as a dove of peace
Apollo 11 mission emblem – an eagle as a dove of peace
Michael Collins, the Command and Service Module pilot, designed the mission emblem for Apollo 11. It is the only mission emblem on which the names of the astronauts are not written at the edge, as was common practice on the Mercury and Gemini flights and the first three Apollo flights, as well as on subsequent missions. Collins wanted to show that the crew was flying to the Moon on behalf of all the 400,000 people who were involved in the construction of the launcher and the three spacecraft modules, the preparations and the planning. The bald eagle, the heraldic creature of the USA, holds an olive branch in its talons, which expresses the peaceful character of the mission. It has since been noticed that the Earth above the lunar horizon is illuminated by the Sun from the wrong direction during Apollo 11’s flight along the lunar equator. The hemisphere in shadow should be on the underside and not to the left.
