|
I have made some adjustments to the shipping options. Due to major increases in USPS First Class international rates, international customers have the ability to choose non-tracked shipping to bring their cost down. The option for tracked is still available at the new, higher rate. (First class USPS package with tracking to Europe is now $15) I will still have to manually refund you for combined shipping when you place an order with multple items. |
These are some concept sticker/patch artwork I concieved for SOHO's (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) 3000th comet discovery milestone.
I wanted to highlight the imagery usually used to make the discoveries and call out SOHO's ongoing extended mission with "...and counting".
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.
