The other day, I saw Spider-Man wearing a NASA T-shirt. Well, not Spider-Man, but Peter Parker. And if I’m being totally accurate, it wasn’t Peter Parker. It was actor Tom Holland, who plays your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in the recent Marvel films, including “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
That symbol seems to be cropping up everywhere. I saw characters wearing it in recent Spider-Man movies, in the new film “Don’t Look Up,” on various TV shows.
What gives? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is just another government agency headquartered in Washington. So is the National Archives and Records Administration, but you hardly ever see anyone wearing a NARA T-shirt in a blockbuster film.
It’s NASA! NASA! NASA!
“ ‘Guardians [of the Galaxy]’ has NASA stuff in it,” Bert Ulrich, NASA’s multimedia liaison for film and TV collaboration, told me. “I think we had two ‘Avengers’ movies work with us.”
The list goes on. In 2021, NASA worked on 18 feature films, 44 TV programs and nearly 200 documentary projects, Ulrich said.
Ulrich works with filmmakers who want permission to use NASA imagery in their projects, things like NASA-emblazoned space suits. He also helps find NASA experts who can consult on the science in their projects. The agency was heavily involved with “Hidden Figures,” “The Martian” and “First Man,” he said.
“We do try to help films out that are trying to get accuracy,” he said.
They also helped out with the somewhat less scientific “Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon” and the upcoming “Moonfall,” where the Moon is knocked from its orbit and comes hurtling toward Earth.
“I think we do want to share our story as best we can,” Ulrich said. “And movies are a wonderful way to reach out to the greater public. We are often very open and amenable to allowing our assets to be used, when appropriate.”
When appropriate. NASA passed on the opportunity to be involved in the 2017 Jake Gyllenhaal film “Life,” about a probe to Mars that returns to the International Space Station with a sample of alien life. Things do not go well.
Said Ulrich: “It was such a scary, horrific movie, just not the type of thing the agency should embrace, officially.”
When the film doesn’t fit with NASA’s gestalt, filmmakers can’t use the agency’s logo. They have to make up their own.
That’s the movies. There’s been a similar explosion in NASA-themed clothing. Civilians all over the planet are sporting NASA-bilia, which is available everywhere from Target ($8.99 for a kids short-sleeve T) to Saks Fifth Avenue, where you can pay $3,250 for a blue Balenciaga “space bomber jacket.”
Go to any college campus, Ulrich said, and there are “kids there with NASA shirts on. You see it on the subway. You see it on the street. It's just proliferating.”
It sure is. Last year, Ulrich said, the agency received 11,000 merchandising requests from companies that wanted to use the logo on some sort of object. NASA doesn’t license the logo, it gives approval and requires that merchandisers follows its guidelines. For example, it can’t be used on alcohol, food, cosmetics, tobacco, underwear or technology, and when it is used, it has to be the proper font, color, etc.
There are two logos. The aforementioned Meatball insignia was designed by James Modarelli and introduced in 1959 to replace the winged logo of NASA’s precursor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. (The horizontal red V in the Meatball is based on the design of a supersonic wing.)
In 1975, the Meatball was replaced by the “Worm”: the letters “NASA” spelled out in sinuous red lines. It was designed by New York firm Danne and Blackburn. There was a definite 1970s vibe to the Worm. A lot of NASA old-timers were not fans, and one of the first things NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin did when he came aboard in 1992 was retire the Worm.
In 2017, NASA reintroduced the Worm. The timing couldn’t have been better. The ’70s were back, and merchandising requests, um, skyrocketed, from between 10 and 20 a week to 225 a week, Ulrich said.
Why is NASA imagery so popular?
“We're in the age of tech,” said Ulrich. “We're in the age of ‘nerdism is cool, science is cool.’ It's wonderful that NASA fits into the tech in its own way.”
And, he said, there’s “an aspirational element to the agency that I think people resonate to.”
In other words, with all the problems we’re having on Earth, people are looking to the stars. And the stars — Tom Holland, anyway — are wearing NASA merch.
Read more from John Kelly.
