April 16 - 27, 1972
CSM Casper, LM Orion

A Personal Story...

..."Now that we were just a couple of months from launch, what patch would we have for Apollo-16? Each crew selected their own special flight patch. John Young, Ken Mattingly, and I had several basic ideas we wished to incorporate to commemorate our mission: patriotism, teamwork, and the moon. We wanted these ideas, plus the mission number and the names of the crew, to be displayed on our patch, and talked with a NASA graphic artist who designed exactly what we wanted.

Basically the design was a brown and white eagle with wings outstreched, perched atop a red, white, and blue American seal, over a gray lunar surface background. To show teamwork, the yellow NASA wishbone symbol of flight was placed on top of the seal, and then across the seal were written the words Apollo-16. Circling a blue and gold border were our names - YOUNG, MATTINGLY, and DUKE - and sixteen white stars to emphasize outher space and the number of our flight. We were very proud of this patch, wich to us symbolized Apollo-16"...

..."This patch was designed by Barbara Matelski in the graphics shop at Johnson Space Center. The idea came from us. We wanted to tell the teamwork story, plus identify the crew, plus keep America visible. The Eagle and shield and the red white and blue were for the U.S.A. The wishbone for NASA (this is the flight symbol from the NASA insignia). The moon to signify our landing. The 16 stars for our flight number. Ken selected Casper for his Command Module and John and I selected Orion. We wanted something connected with the stars"...

The Crew

The crew for Apollo-16 were; John W. Young, commander, Thomas K. Mattingly II, command module pilot, Charles M. Duke, Jr., lunar module pilot.

The Artwork

The Apollo 16 crew patch is dominated by an eagle perched atop a red, white and blue shield a superimposed on a lunar scene, surrounded by a blue circle of 16 stars with the crew's surnames completing the bottom are of the circle. A cross the face of the shield is a gold symbol of flight outlined in blue, similar to that on the NASA agency seal and insignia. The design was created by a NASA artist from ideas submitted by the three crew men.

Lion Brothers

Other Design

In the days before the formal crew announcement I ran up a rough design for a patch and sent it on down to Charlie Duke; it contained some elements which appeared on the finished patch, but sufficiently different that I can no way claim credit for the design. My design was in the shape of a shield, like Apollo 10's, with lunar surface and a curved horizon filling the foreground like Apollo 11's, the "sky" or upper 2/3 of the shield was filled with 16 stars on the blue field (13 in silver for the original states, 3 in gold for the crew) atop the shield and a number of vertical red and white stripes (essentially the US Shield); striding across the lunar surface was an adaptation of the eagle (designed by A.A.Weinmanin 1915-6) from the reverse of the 50 cent piece which was current in the years all three astronauts were born; the last names of the three astronauts appear along the botton curves of the shield: Young Duke Mattingly. I still have the original artwork "somewhere" here in some long-filled sketchbook. I sent Xeroxes with color suggestions to Charlie, keeping the original here in case I was asked to refine it. Never heard anything, so just let the matter drop. Did any of the astros think enough of my idea to show it to the "NASA graphic artist", and did that serve in any way as inspiration? I have no idea. All I know is whoever created the final patch artwork did an outstanding job.