I absolutely LOVE how much this post has blown up and love that people are giving this boy some love!!
A few things I learned since someone asked “why did the one on the craft look different with a handle?”
So I did some digging and learned more facts!!
After Lucas won the contest, he handed his creation over to NASA. His original was made via needle felt and NASA needed to update it using space safe and flame resistant materials. They gave it to their seamstress team (yes, you heard that right, they have a large seamstress team because everyone has a place at NASA) who then recreated it detail for detail using safer and lighter materials.
They added the handle on top to make it easier for the astronauts to handle in bulky gloves and also added a tiny pocket at the very bottom. This pocket contained a USB card where millions of people submitted their names before the mission. RISE was not only to represent zero gravity but to also represent US GUYS!!! 😭 RISE safely carried all our names with them to the moon. He was humanity.
NASA is VERY good at incorporating the human aspect into everything!!
Lucas was invited to the takeoff event in Florida with his family where he had his original RISE creation with him watching at the Kennedy Space Center. He was there on the ground watching his creation go to space and I think that’s so cool!
As a side vent, I’d like to add this is why the structure has changed from STEM to STEAM in recent years. There are threads on Reddit of teachers actually mad about adding “arts” to a science and math curriculum but RISE is exactly why. We needed this to visually show science. We needed RISE and the patches that were designed by someone to represent the mission, that United people. The crew had to take special photography classes beforehand to learn how to take pictures in deep space and also how to appropriately describe what they were seeing to relay back to Earth. The pictures we are getting from the telescopes in space would mean nothing if there wasn’t a component of art to it. The seamstresses at NASA aren’t scientists but they work directly with engineers and their line of work is artistic and creative. Art and science coexist. Just like art and Geography exist because someone has to make the maps. This is why I am all for it staying STEAM instead of STEM.