The center in Philadelphia showing off the Liberty Bell includes
displays of the Bell's appearance in popular culture, including (among
very many things including chairs so tacky I'm surprised my grandmother
didn't have them) Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 mission patch.

The display diorama -- needing to bring the captions in on time --
doesn't explain that the patch was created a couple of years after the
flight when the Gemini V ``Covered Wagon'' patch proved to be a big hit,
but we all know that here anyway.

What I wondered was: do we know who created the 'retcon' patches,
and to what extent the first nine astronauts to fly were involved in the
design? (On the one hand I imagine they'd find it a bit of extra fun --
my sense is the Apollo astronauts generally viewed it as a treat among
the harder work -- but then it would also be yet another thing to do and
over flights that were months and years in the past that didn't improve
the flights' usefulness outside publicity value.)

--
Joseph Nebus
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