In the early 1980's, the Soviets were using their Salyut-7 space station for regular Soyuz missions, including 10 manned missions. The station served as a science platform that would be Mir's predecessor. Throughout the 1970's on the heels of the Apollo-Soyuz project, Soviet and US representives discussed the possibility of a US space shuttle docking mission to a Salyut station. This would include the possibility of ferrying Soviet cosmonauts on the shuttle. Unfortunately these plans never made it past the discussions stages.

However, had such a mission occured, in 1981 as planned, it would have likely been the space shuttle Columbia docking with Salyut 7. I designed this patch as if this fantastic joint United States/Soviet mission occured under the old Soviet "Interkosmos" program. 

I don't have any plans to produce this patch unless there are indications of interest, so it's merely a fun exercise in retro patch design.

Another fantasy design originated from a Russian documentary about the idea of the US capturing the ailing Salyut 7 station with a space shuttle. A widely-panned and debunked documentary called "The Battle for Salyut: A Space Detective" aired in Russia in 2011. While that scenario was conceptualized as the US capturing the station in order to gain its secrets, it would likely have been marketed as a "rescue" had the word gotten out. This fantasy patch is my idea of a patch that might have been released to mark such an event had it actually been feasable. The term "rescue" would imply some sort of cooperation on the part of the US when in fact it would likely be an act of war at the time. 

There are a so many significant milestones in manned spaceflight through the 1960's that it's hard to nail them all down. Keeping with the Retrorocket Emblems tradition of releasing patches for missions that may not have have one in the past, I am considering the following patches in an upcoming Kickstarter. 

I am also still debating if a Kickstarter for the Delta 7 and Freedom 7 II patches would be viable, to complete those Eagle One Aerospace Mercury sets out there. 

Delta 7 - Deke Slayton	Freedom 7-II - Alan Shepard

We are happy to annount our third Kickstarter campaign. This time we are offering a set of replica patches: STS-61E and the STS-41C "Black Cat" patch. This is our first time offering a set of replicas rather than original designs and we are pretty excited by the support thus far.

The STS-61E patch has been reproduced in the past, at leat 4 times, usually as a one piece design. The intent of this patch is to reproduce the STS-61E patch that was produced originally in limited quantities. 

The STS-13/STS-41C "Black Cat" has also seen a previos reprodution but we are hoping for a more accurate representation. 

The "Black Cat" patch was designed by the late Dick Scobee and Retrorocket Emblems the permission of his family to reproduce the design. 

A big thank you to all of the backers to made the second Kickstarter campaign a huge success. The See-Bassett commemorative patch will be made! The campaign raised almost twice the original funding goal so I added a stretch goal for a second patch to be made. It seems only fair to use the extra funds for more creative work and the stretch goal was funded within a few days. I let the backers and collectors vote on which patch they would like to see included. 

The votes were overwhelmingly in support of a Deke Slayton Delta 7 fantasy patch to complement the Eagle One Aerospace Mercury artwork patch series. The second place votes supported a Pegasus Satellite patch. 

On the heels of our successful inaugural Kickstarter campaign, Retrorocket Emblems has launched a second campaign to raise funds for a patch that commemorates Elliot See, Jr and Charles Bassett II as prime crew of Gemini IX. 

Due to the success of our 2014 Kickstarter Campaign and with a very special thank you to the supporters who made that happen, Retrorocket Emblems is happy to announce the very limited availability of four new commemorative patches:

HAM the Astro Chimp Commemorative Patch

RRE has three new patches coming Q4 or Q1 2014. We plan to release all three simultaneously as part of a Kickstarter campaign which will allow you to acquire all three at a special price. We here at RRE have a desire to create patches that fill in some of those gaps in the Space Race era. We hope these three offerings do just that.

The Retrorocket Emblems is proud to announce the sale of the Apollo 4 concept patch, the first of at least three concept patches in a series.