NASA’s Artemis II crew are officially the fastest people alive - though they had to wait three weeks for the embroidered proof. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (the Canadian one) spent 10 days in early April zipping past the Moon, reaching a distance of 52,756 miles (406,771 km) from Earth - farther than any humans have gone - and then hitting about 24,664 mph (39,693 kph) on reentry aboard their Orion spacecraft Integrity. That’s Mach 39, depending on how you measure it, which turns out to be a bit of a math puzzle.
Only three people in history have traveled faster: Apollo 10’s Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan, who clocked 24,791 mph (39,897 kph) on May 26, 1969. Cernan died in 2017, Young in 2018, and Stafford in 2024, so the Artemis II crew now hold the title among the living. Glover noted at a post-flight press conference on April 16 that the display showed Mach 38.89, but “it depends on how you measure that number.” At sea level, 24,664 mph would be Mach 32, but up there, where the air is thinner and colder, it’s a different story.
The Mach 39 patch, produced by A-B Emblem in Weaverville, North Carolina, made its public debut on June 5 in a video posted by Wiseman. He didn’t mention the patch - he was busy reenlisting a recovery team member into the Navy - but there it was, on his left chest, replacing a Mach 25 patch. The original Mach 25 design dates back to after STS-1 in 1981, when astronauts Dan Brandenstein and Jim Buchli thought, “Hey, fighter jocks get Mach 2 patches; we should get Mach 25 patches.” The new version swaps the space shuttle for an Orion with solar wings from the European Service Module.
This isn’t the first redesign. In 2009, the STS-125 crew got Mach 26 patches for their higher-speed Hubble servicing mission. In 2011, Mike Fincke wore a “MAXA 25” patch with a Soyuz. In 2019, A-B Emblem mocked up Dragon and Starliner versions. There’s even a “100 Days” patch for ISS crew members, with variants for 200, 300, and 500 days - and on December 5, 2025, Fincke gave Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov a 600 Days patch. The Artemis II crew’s patch is now part of this proud tradition of turning extreme velocity into a fashion statement.