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The Military United States

Did America Steal Its Space Force Logo From 'Star Trek'? (slashgear.com) 157

On Friday America's commander-in-chief revealed the logo for the newest branch of its military, Space Force. CNBC immediately reported that the logo "has boldly gone where Star Trek has gone before." The Pentagon and White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's query as to why the Space Force and Star Trek logos -- both with blue globes, white stars, and swooshed rings around a sleek space ship -- looked similar.
"The U.S. government took a thing from a TV show and made it the official emblem of a branch of the military, " tweeted a culture writer for the New York Times.

But conservative national security commentator John Noonan argued it looks more like the logo for America's Air Force Space Command (founded in 1982). "So the Air Force originally stole the Star Trek logo?" someone asked him on Twitter -- prompting this wry reply.

"Well, that was certainly the joke we made 15 years ago."

But it may actually be the other way around. One Star Trek fan site claims that the Starfleet logo never even appeared on the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation series, and wasn't created until after the Air Force's logo, during the fourth season of Deep Space Nine (around 1996), by American graphic designer Mike Okuda: In the Star Trek Sticker Book, on the cover of which the logo of Starfleet Command is shown at a large size, Mike Okuda writes, "The Starfleet Command seal was first seen in 'Homefront' (Deep Space 9) and later in 'In the Flesh' (Voyager), although the agency itself, of course, dates back to the original Star Trek series.

"The symbol was intended to be somewhat reminiscent of the NASA emblem."

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Did America Steal Its Space Force Logo From 'Star Trek'?

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  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @11:44AM (#59655332)

    You are a designer chosen to build a logo for Space Force (or whatever).

    Honestly how do you NOT give at least a nod to Star Trek in the design for a logo? Yes this is more than nod, but honestly how is it not cool that they are borrowing so heavily from classic fiction to build a real world military force in space?

    It's not like that Star Trek logo had no influence from NASA.

    • Honestly how do you NOT give at least a nod to Star Trek in the design for a logo?

      It depends on to what extent "The logo must not cause a major SF entertainment publisher to have grounds for suing the United States in the Court of Federal Claims" was part of the requirements for the logo. Star Trek copyright and trademark owner ViacomCBS's corporate predecessors weren't that accepting of the "homage" argument in the Axanar case.

      • Eminent domain. Hollywood (like everyone else) lacks any rights when the government wants something.
      • The US government is not bound by copyright. They have executive immunity against lawsuits on civil issues such as copyright and patents, if the federal government gets sued, they can choose whether or not to litigate the case or just claim immunity.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Esteanil ( 710082 )

      So who's gonna tell Trump his shiny new Space Force logo is a homage to a bunch of space communists? :-p

      • They aren't communists though because the state still exists in Star Trek as the Federation of Planets.
        • by lgw ( 121541 )

          You know, I'm not sure what sort of economic system Star Trek had, but maybe it's the right way forward. Not Socialism, as all the businesses we saw were privately owned, and not very regulated, at least at the Federal level (think about what Orion slave girls imply). And yet we never saw a mega-corporation either, at least not out at the fringes (presumably building military warships is a very large business).

          Post-scarcity return to small businesses and local manufacture? Central government not caring m

          • You know, I'm not sure what sort of economic system Star Trek had, but maybe it's the right way forward. Not Socialism, as all the businesses we saw were privately owned, and not very regulated

            The only (Federation) businesses in the show were a coffee shop in San Francisco, a bistro in New Orleans and the Picard vineyard. We don't see enough of any of them to judge how tightly regulated they are; it's extremely unlikely that the programme makers even thought about it.

            ...at least at the Federal level (think about what Orion slave girls imply).

            Orion wasn't a member of the Federation. (There's actually a good episode of Star Trek Continues [vimeo.com] that brings this issue to the fore.)

            And yet we never saw a mega-corporation either, at least not out at the fringes (presumably building military warships is a very large business).

            Actually there are a few mega-corps mentioned - by way of an Easter egg [nocookie.net] - in DS9 (it includes Divad

            • by lgw ( 121541 )

              Even in a post-scarcity world there are still things that people will value/desire enough to trade for.

              Absolutely! That's why there will always be jobs, even when all the basics are provided effectively free. But that baseline is a change in kind.

              Deep Space Nine is a Bajoran station, and they aren't part of the Federation.

              Heh, federation military is occupying it. That's the facts, The rest is political lies.

              A waiter in Café Sisko or whatever it's called doesn't get paid they might be compensated with hand-prepared meals from a locally famous chef, or they may simply do it because they enjoy it.

              No one's working as a barrista because they like it. And the very reason we have money is to mediate barter! Sure, the money might be spent on that meal, but there will be some ledger somewhere to keep track of some sort of credits. It's just too awkward otherwise. Plus th

    • {H]ow is it not cool that they are borrowing so heavily from classic fiction to build a real world military force in space?

      Well, during the Cold War, the US and USSR agreed that space was not to be militarized. So forgetting that even during a conflict whose end was widely feared to be nuclear annihilation, humans agreed that space would be off limits for weapons and battle. The moon would belong to everyone, much like Antarctica, and space would not become a military theater of operation.

      Your use of the phrase "real world military force" suggests that Starfleet is a fictional military force, which was explicitly not the case.

    • You are a designer chosen to build a logo for Space Force (or whatever).

      Honestly how do you NOT give at least a nod to Star Trek in the design for a logo? Yes this is more than nod, but honestly how is it not cool that they are borrowing so heavily from classic fiction to build a real world military force in space?

      It's not like that Star Trek logo had no influence from NASA.

      Seeing it is a military unit, it probably would have been more appropriate to base it on the logo for the Terran Empire.

    • Not stealing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Saturday January 25, 2020 @07:24PM (#59656380) Homepage Journal

      And besides, how can it be "stealing" if Star Trek still has their own copy? Didn't we establish this 20 years ago [slashdot.org], when Napster was all the rage?

    • Start trek logo and insignia was a nod to nasa logo... not the other way around..... Start fleet is meant to be a direct descendent off nasa
    • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      You are a designer chosen to build a logo for Space Force (or whatever).

      Honestly how do you NOT give at least a nod to Star Trek in the design for a logo?

      I think you'll find that Chevron is a reference to Masonic symbolism. It's is all through NASA, Star Trek and most other space agencies of the world if you look at their emblems you will find some variation on the chevron theme. It's no surprise that the US Space Force chose it, it would have been more surprising if they didn't.

      Also Buzz Aldrin was a 33rd level Mason and references to their work is throughout many NASA artifacts.

    • As long as Air Force don't owe anything in licensing to the showbiz guys... Knowing how things are governed over there, that might have actually been the intended outcome

  • by vegabook ( 3514291 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @11:50AM (#59655344)
    Though the logo was first plagiarised 15 years ago: https://twitter.com/noonanjo/s... [twitter.com]
  • by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @11:52AM (#59655350) Journal
    If you change the coloring, I think the patch from the first shuttle launch, which predates both the Star Trek and Air Force Space Command's logo are obvious ancestors of the US Space Force logo. Of course, the form likely goes back further. I fully expect to see it traced back to something in fiction in the 50s or 60s before we hear the end of this. True originality is very rare.
  • Think of the Star Trek logo as a tribute to the creator of the Star Trek universe.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @12:16PM (#59655402)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • It's supposed to represent a rocket and space flight. But yes, it does look like the Starfleet logo.

  • I'm pretty sure the only winners here will be the lawyers
  • When this polarized nation inevitably whipsaws its leadership in the opposite direction from Trump, most everything he did including this space force thing are going to be annuled.

    If they don't outright disband it, they'll probably change its logo to look like the clunky 1970s NASA logo, pare it down to a couple of low-level staff members, and then reassign it to be a subsidiary of the New Hampshire National Guard.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      There's no putting the new pollution and greenhouse gases back in the toothpaste tube that Trump is squeezing them out of. The people harmed by his policies won't become unharmed. Somehow the health of Americans is for sale with this alleged administration. Who will they sue after they get sick and those bozos have left office? He's even screwing with the school lunch program, I presume he thinks kids do not need decent nutrition. There's no annuling that.

    • When the seesaw goes the other way and it's another republican president the space force will just get reinstated and continue it's 5 year mission (you were wondering why the mission was so short) to destroy strange new worlds and rod other cultures into submission. I think the space force is pretty much the only thing Trump has done that I actually agree with. Seems like a clever way to skim some of that nearly infinite military funding toward space exploration and development.

  • by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @12:45PM (#59655446)

    Waah waaah! OMG do you need your binkie? Baby needs his paci? Need your stuffie? You bunch are *WORSE* than the Vietnam protesters!

    It's a military outfit. Certain themes have been in the USAF visual language since the beginning. That "starfleet" looking thing? It's a delta wing. You know, like the type of paper plane called a "dart." It's very common in USAF heraldry. Been using it forever.

    I have my favorites. The Pocket Rocket is one -- the Missile badge. The guys who sit in silos waiting for the order get to wear that one, as do the folks that fix 'em. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Oh hell, here's the original Space Command badge, when it was a USAF MAJCOM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] This is vintage 1982, you understand..

    I *love* this one, but it will undoubtedly upset our oh-so-delicate-snowflakes: https://emapatches.com/eriks-m... [emapatches.com]

    And of course, also the ones about doing solid good, like risking it all to go pick up a downed pilot: old California ANG air/sea rescue patch: http://usafrescue.blogspot.com... [blogspot.com]

    And this one always makes me tear up a bit: So That Others May Live. These guys, the para-rescue, they never have to buy their own drinks, anywhere they go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I tried joining that bunch. The physical I could almost tolerate, but I frankly didn't have the mental fortitude at that time I tried to hack the mental challenges. I can't think of a more respected outfit in the USAF than PJs.

    If you people are so offended by our military, then fucking LEAVE, go to some country that doesn't have one. You never speak up, you pansies, when you see 5 Lockheed C-5s stocked to the fucking rafters with food and supplies, landing at a cracked-up airfield after a hurricane or earthquake flattens a place not 24 hrs after the event. No, you only ridicule us when in your so-easily-offended-eyes we "wrong" someone.

    You know, you can enlist, or go into the officer corps, and do something fucking useful with your life instead of bemoaning how violent we are as a nation.

    Nations are born from war, war is violent and bloody -- get used to it, because I foresee tons of it in this decade alone, both within our borders, and out there in the world.

    Toughen up, you pansies!

    DGAF if you mod me into oblivion. It's bloody obvious tons read /. at -whatever.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      You know, you can enlist, or go into the officer corps, and do something fucking useful with your life instead of bemoaning how violent we are as a nation.

      I'm going to keep complaining about how violent our nation is. I think that it is the very definition of something useful to do with my life, thanks.

      Toughen up, you pansies!

      Get a brain, morans!
      • It is the duty of the American military to prevent genocides elsewhere, to prevent human rights violations, to provide law and order while an occupied country is social-engineered towards democracy, to enforce a humane balance of power in every world region.

        The idea that the American military might retreat back to within its own borders, and be employed only to deal with direct military threats to America sounds bizarrely radical. Ending this wound endanger the exportations of an important ideology (e.g. de

        • by DogDude ( 805747 )
          Just because things used to be done in a particular way doesn't make them OK. The US isn't doing anything to prevent human rights violations in other countries they're invading. They're just invading to make money for military contractors and oil companies.
        • I didn't see America doing squat in countries that don't have oil, or protecting democracy (or promoting it) in countries that don't have oil.
          Didn't see much "protection" happening during the Rwanda genocide.
          Mali is currently overrun with ISIS etc. don't see the US there either.
          Zimbabwe had a tyrant ruling there FOR EVER and the US did nothing but slap on some sanctions which hurt the poor more than anyone.

          Before WWII if a country needed something, THEY WENT AND TOOK IT

          And after WWII America does the sa

      • I'm going to keep complaining about how violent our nation is. I think that it is the very definition of something useful to do with my life, thanks.

        In the USA, you have the freedom to do just that.

        You are welcome.

        • Sure you do.
          Just not ALL of America.
          Free speech zones [wikipedia.org]
          But hey, don't let reality pop the bubble you are living in or anything.
          * Assasination of US citizens
          * Indefinite detention
          * Arbitary justice
          * Warrantless searches
          * Secret courts with secret evidence
          * Snowden and Assange hiding because they told the truth.

          The list goes on and one, but my personal favourite...
          * Most people locked up in prison cells in the WHOLE WORLD! Even beats South Africa. Just shows you how capitalism and private prison
  • It also kinda looks like a cross between the old Lego Space logo and Star Trek insignia

  • The DOD can counter sue on behalf of the Navy.
    Star Trek stole the name Enterprise.
    The WWII carrier predates all Star Trek.

  • The logo is obviously based on the ship design of asteroids and therefore stolen from Atari.

  • Loooooonnnng answer is also yes. Just look at it.

  • ...the Star Trek IP owners will ABSOLUTELY endorse this and enthusiastically support it, hell, I'd even encourage the US to just go all out and take the Star Trek logo.

    The UFP has to start somewhere.

  • by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @01:38PM (#59655590)

    "... reminiscent of the NASA emblem."

    While contracting at NASA/Ames in the '80s. I never heard the classic NASA logo called the "meatball". The new logo was called the "worm" and the original was called the "vector" logo. At least that's what the NASA personnel in the Navigation and Guidance Division I was working with called it. My guess: the PR people consulted by the web site designer don't know what a vector is.

  • by magusxxx ( 751600 ) <magusxxx_2000 AT yahoo DOT com> on Saturday January 25, 2020 @03:07PM (#59655828)

    Considering what's going on nowadays I thought they would have copied the mirror universe one.

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals... [pinimg.com]

    • I always thought they should do an alternate universe series with Klingons as the good guys. ST:E could have spun that off with Emperor Shochi.
      • Klingons could be like Vulcans
        Romulans offshoot of Vulcans that join Klingon Empire

        And the Vulcans could be like the Borg and have force assimilation camps using mind-melds.

  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday January 25, 2020 @04:49PM (#59656082)
    So this story finally got me to research what the hell the red two-tailed arrow is [nasa.gov] in NASA's original insignia. It's a supersonic arrow-wing design [flickr.com] that was being tested and state of the art at the time.

    Stand it upright on its two tail points and I think you have your first shield-chevron. Pre-dating the Air Force Space Command [wikipedia.org], pre-dating Apollo [nasa.gov], pre-dating Star Trek, pre-dataing U.S. military space operations, and pre-dating NASA (it's from when they were still NACA).
  • I am sick of the media industry getting away with having propagated the meme that copying something is stealing.

    It is not stealing, it's copyright infringement or in this case trademark infringement or design infringement or whatever - a civil issue, not a crime - theft is a crime.

    Theft deprives the owner of the thing being stolen, copying something does not deprive the owner of that thing, can I be any clearer?

  • ... of the original Star Trek. Just google images from Captain Kirk.

  • Where can I buy real-world Starfleet merch?

  • Betteridge's Law of Headlines

"Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse

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