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

Did America Steal Its Space Force Logo From ‘Star Trek’? -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.”