Mercury 4 Commemorative Mission Patch

Mercury 4 Commemorative Mission Patch

This Mercury patch was produced by the American company A-B Emblem to commemorate the flight of Mercury 4, as Gus Grissom became the second American astronaut.

The patch is a design created by A-B Emblem after the mission and is not an official mission patch. Mission patches only began to be designed and worn by American astronauts for spaceflight from Gemini 5 onwards. Gus Grissom named his mission Liberty Bell 7, following on a naming convention initiated by the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard. The first group of US astronauts were called the Mercury 7, so Shepard chose to use the number as part of the name for his Mercury spacecraft - Freedom 7. Scott Carpenter, who flew a later Mercury flight, claimed that Shepard actually named his spacecraft Freedom 7 only because it was the seventh spacecraft of the Mercury line. His fellow Mercury astronauts never correcting the misconception.

Grissom selected Liberty Bell 7 for his spacecraft name, in honour of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - a symbol of American freedom. This bell features prominently in the patch design. As collecting mission patches became popular, companies like A-B Emblem retrospectively produced versions for early spaceflights like Mercury. A-B Emblem began work with NASA in the 1960s, before signing an exclusive contract to produce official patches for spaceflight missions in 1970. This particular patch was made in the 1970s.