It's been said that when NASA was interviewing Gemini astronaut candidates, they had them all register at the Rice Hotel in Houston as "Max Peck" (which turns out to be the name of the hotel manager). This patch requires some suspension of belief in order to imagine all of these pilots, test pilots and aviators mingling in the hotel lounge wearing all the same name tag. While this never happened, this name tag is a bit of a play on this imaginary moment of an actual event. The patch is 3 1/2" wide and includes a matching decal. This patch will come mounted on velcro, which is a first for Retrorocket Emblems. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did imaginging it! Available mid-December 2025.
(Sample image, patch in production)
The original patch is extremely rare, and based on the embroidery style may have only been made by the handful. The design is simple and depicts the Roman god Mercury in profile. The patch is 3" in diameter. There's no official link of this patch to the program, so it's more of a curiosity than anything. Patch will be available to ship around December 1, 2025.
The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five uncrewed lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States in 1966 and 1967. Intended to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the Moon's surface, They provided the first photographs from lunar orbit and photographed both the Moon and Earth.This patch commeorates the proram and depicts one of the probes imaging the lunar surface. Patch is 4" in diameter.
Mariner 4 was a historic NASA mission that in 1965 became the first spacecraft to conduct a successful flyby of Mars, capturing the first close-up images of the planet and revealing a cold, cratered, and Moon-like surface with a thin atmosphere and no signs of life or canals. The mission provided essential data on interplanetary space conditions and radiation, paving the way for future deep space exploration and demonstrating the feasibility of long-duration space flights. This partch commemorates the mission with the Mariner 4 probe passing over the planet Mars. Patch is 4" in diameter and is in stock.
Launched in 1962, NASA's Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to successfully fly by another planet, unlocking Venus' secrets and paving the way for interplanetary exploration. This is a fresh release as part of Retroreocket Emblem's new retro releases to celebrate past missions that lacked an official, commercial patch. The intent is to produce a patch that looks as if it was designed and produced at the time of the mission.
This patch is a 4" patch that shows Mariner 2's flight path to Venus and depics Mariner 2 in orbit of Venus conducting experiments with its radiometer to scan Venus' atmosphere. 
Recieve one of each cut and uncut Apollo 7 crew replica patches.
This will ship late March 2025.
Retrorocket Emblems is excited to finally release their Apollo 7 replica. I have wanted to replicate this patch for almost 10 years. There were a lot of challenges in producing this patch because the original version of this patch had so many unique production features that are distinct to the long outmoded Schiffli embroidery machine. While modern multi-head embroidery machines produce beautiful work, there was a certain quality and style that was lost when the older machines were replaced. I did my best to re-create some of these artifacts with this Apollo 7 replica. One of the unique attributes of this particular patch is the rather rough nature of all the detail work on the Apollo CSM. Details that even varied across individual patches. Fine details were a distinct challenge in the era when the embroidery machines were programmed using punched paper tape. Another difficult element to reproduce was the classic Schiffli fill style. Modern machines have a very difficult time accurately reproducing it. Having said all that, I hope you enjoy this reproduction as much as I do, and I hope it finds a welcome place in your collection.
This version is cut from the twill and reflects the version as worn by the crew on their recovery.
Retrorocket Emblems is excited to finally release their Apollo 7 replica. I have wanted to replicate this patch for almost 10 years. There were a lot of challenges in producing this patch because the original version of this patch had so many unique production features that are distinct to the long outmoded Schiffli embroidery machine. While modern multi-head embroidery machines produce beautiful work, there was a certain quality and style that was lost when the older machines were replaced. I did my best to re-create some of these artifacts with this Apollo 7 replica. One of the unique attributes of this particular patch is the rather rough nature of all the detail work on the Apollo CSM. Details that even varied across individual patches. Fine details were a distinct challenge in the era when the embroidery machines were programmed using punched paper tape. Another difficult element to reproduce was the classic Schiffli fill style. Modern machines have a very difficult time accurately reproducing it. Having said all that, I hope you enjoy this reproduction as much as I do, and I hope it finds a welcome place in your collection.
