BADGE OF HONOUR

SPORRONG SPACE EXPO BADGE

Christmas 2017 provided a real treat for me, courtesy of the ever generous blog stalwart, Arto. A rare enamelled badge from the fabulous Space 2000 exhibition in Dipoli, Espoo, back in 1984. (Click image for link).

Arto reports that the expo showed a full scale mock up of the Souyz/Salyut/Progress combination, as shown on this photo from Russian Space Web.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANATOLY ZAK

Salyut 7 was one of several early russian stations which paved the way for man's extended exploration of space and was succeeded by the much larger Mir and ultimately by the International Space Station. Salyut showed the world how much further soviet space technology had progressed from the  American Skylab mission.

Soviet Space badges commemorating various missions are commonly available on ebay and I picked up a nice little Lunokhod one some years ago.

Badges and space go hand in hand and I have collected several interesting ones over the years. One of the earliest was a puzzle, as I found the badge without any idea as to what it was, until blog supporter Philosophic Toad, after scouring newspapers in the British Library, unearthed a tiny article in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Moonbase Central readers will all be familiar with the lovely Project SWORD badges, four in total including the white Supremo badge from the largest sets.

 Some years back Woodsy managed to persuade Fanderson to add the Sword badege to their repetoire, resulting in this fabulous metal and enamel version, produced from an original plastic version.
http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2010/07/summer-of-sword-fanderson-badge.html

Fanderson offer a range of Gerry Anderson themed badges to members, including the impressive Zero X mission badge.