Even though I was born around the time of Apollo, the spacecraft that I think had the most influence on my childhood had to be the space shuttles. I remember studying the diagrams and drawings of the shuttles National geographic leaflets, where they even diverted my attention from the Forbidden Nipples seen on some of the other pages. I remember watching the first shuttle launch Colombia in 1981, I remember the tragedy of Challenger in 1986, and I remember covering the process of moving the orbiter Effort through the streets of Los Angeles to its eventual home at the California Science Center. And most recently, I took my child to see the orbiter Discovery at the Udvar-Hazy Center, just outside Washington, DC.
This is the orbiter I want to talk about specifically, because I saw a post on social media about the orbiter. Discovery it caught my eye and held it with the kind of fierce grip I imagine Miss Piggy uses on Kermit’s impossibly thin limbs when they’re alone.
This post was on Threads, and I just figured out how to embed a post from that site, so here you can see it for yourself:
Wait, what? Discovery has a backwards “s” in his name? How did this happen? Discovery was generally considered, by astronauts and NASA people, to be the crown jewel of the Space Shuttle. It was recognized as the most reliable and efficient of all orbiters, and the one that flew the most missions and time in space. Since its launch in 1984, Discovery completed 39 missions, spent a total of a full year in space and traveled 150 million kilometers.
The thing flew for 27 years, and somehow no one noticed that the “s” was upside down on the name text on the starboard side?
I mean, I guess I should be more understanding; I’ve seen it several times without ever noticing it, and it wasn’t until tonight that I thought about old photos I’d taken. Discovery last time I was there and saw, holy shit, the Threads guy was right. This “s” is turned 180°.
Now, typography on the shuttle orbiters follows NASA’s carefully planned and strictly enforced graphics and typographic guidelines, which state that typography used on the spacecraft must be Helvetica Medium:
Okay, let’s take a look at the typography of the orbiter:
(the “r” on the font I used there also looks a little different, but it gets the point across and I have to catch a flight in a few hours, so I’ll let that slide)
It’s a subtle difference, but as you can see, the starboard side name definitely has that reversed ” “. It’s subtle, but the Helvetica “s” is slightly wider at the bottom, making the letter look a little more ruled. Here, look:
There, we see the difference, right? I feel like once it’s pointed out, you can’t help but notice it. The “v” on the port side also seems oddly thick, now that I look at it.
I’m told that the graphics on these orbiters were applied using large stencils and special space-grade paint, and I’m sure the complex curves of the fuselage didn’t make applying these elements easy. It’s understandable that a letter stencil was returned, but I’m a little surprised that it was never corrected in its 27 years of useful life.
All other graphics and typography are applied with impressive precision; maybe there were people who knew “s” was wrong, but somehow liked this subtle imperfection, because it adds character to the spaceship. I understand that, absolutely. If I was in charge, I would have let him do it too.
I still can’t believe I’ve never achieved this before; As a typography nerd and space nerd who has spent way too much time looking at photos of spaceships in books and online, you’d think I would have come across this by now, but no. Or if I did, it didn’t make enough of an impression to consciously notice or remember it.
But now that it’s here? I can’t ignore it. And I’m kind of happy about it.
Gn tech
