Artemis Program · Canada · Ars Technica
The fastest humans in the galaxy just got a spiffy patch to prove it
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NASA’s Artemis II crew are the fastest people alive, and now they have the patch to prove it.
Key facts
- The Mach 39 patch replaces Wiseman’s Mach 25 patch, the 40-year-old original design, which inspired the new Artemis edition
- Cernan died in 2017, Young in 2018, and Stafford in 2024
- At sea level, 24,664 mph would be Mach 32, or 32 times the speed of sound
- It was after STS-1 [in 1981],” former astronaut Dan Brandenstein, referring to the origin of the patch, told collectSPACE.com
Summary
Mission Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (the latter with the Canadian Space Agency) spent 10 days in early April flying by the Moon. Cernan died in 2017, Young in 2018, and Stafford in 2024. “The number that they saw on the displays—and the reporter was in tune with what Orion thinks it is going to do—was 38.89 as the Mach. Mach, as a measurement, compares the speed of an object to the local speed of sound.