British Schools in Space Mission Patch

British Schools in Space Mission Patch

The Schools in Space patch was commissioned by 6th form students from Humberstone Comprehensive School in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire for their entry in the Independent Television News (ITN)/Space Services International (SSN) ‘Experiment in Space’ competition. Only 50 were made. The patch features the school crest behind Britannia.

The nationwide competition offered secondary school children and apprentices the opportunity to design an experiment to fly aboard the Space Shuttle as part of NASA’s Small, Self-Contained Payloads programme. The programme had the nickname ‘Getaway Special’ after an advertising campaign at the time by Trans World Airlines, for special vacation fares for flights between Los Angeles and Honolulu. The Getaway Special programme allowed external parties to fly payloads in small cannisters in the Shuttle payload bay.

Experiments for this programme had to meet specific standards. They had to fit into NASA standard containers and weigh no more than 91 kilograms. They could not use any of the Shuttle’s electricity and only require a minimal amount of input from the Shuttle’s crew - limited to six simple activities such as switching it on and off. Humberstone Comprehensive School was the runner up in the competition, after the Ashford school in Kent. Had it not been for the Challenger accident the Humberstone’s payload was likely to fly on STS-61H.