Trump Make America Great Again Committee

Trump Make America Great Again Committee

Trump Make America Great Again Committee

NASA

NASA

The Army has its star, the Marines a globe and anchor. But the decision on what logo to give the proposed Space Force may well be left up to donors to President Trump's political action committee. On Thursday, it sent out an email to supporters asking them to vote on six different logos for this potential new branch of the US military.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Vice President Pence confirmed that the administration is, in fact, serious about creating a sixth branch of the military. In a speech at the Pentagon, Pence argued that the nation needs to assert dominance over space and that adversaries—China and Russia to be precise—are already militarizing Earth orbits.

Many questions remain to be answered about the Space Force, the latest being: who designed these logos? The first option bears more than a little resemblance to the NASA logo but with a different but still NASA-like typeface, at least to this observer. Option three looks a lot like it belonged to Action Force, a line of toys from the 1980s—that actually included a Space Force—that were a British equivalent to GI Joe. Choice number four suggests to me both the mission patch from STS-1 (the first Space Shuttle mission) and the logo of the Light Car Company Rocket, a distinctive little sports car that was designed by Gordon Murray.

I'm actually rather partial to logo number five, which takes me back to the early Cold War and the slick marketing posters put out by the aerospace industry. The final design might be the most out-there, proclaiming "MARS AWAITS;" perhaps the inspiration here were the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's recent "Visions of the Future" tourism posters.

We'll have to wait to see if a Space Force is really set up before we'll know if any of these six designs will actually be adopted as its logo. But it seems certain that merchandise bearing these images will be available in return for a donation to the Trump campaign in the near future.

Listing image by Trump Make America Great Again Committee