Code Name: CHAOS — That's NumberWang!
Arabic numerals were used for every phase of Project Mercury. Mercury 3 was Alan Shepard's flight aboard the
Freedom 7 & Mercury 6 was John Glenn's flight aboard the
Friendship 7. (The first manned flight was Mercury 3? The third manned flight was Mercury 6? Those numbers don't add up. Mercury 1 was an uncrewed test flight of the hardware, while Mercurys 2 & 5 were crewed by chimpanzees, Ham & Enos, respectively.) This schema continued into Project Gemini, Gemini 1 & Gemini 2 being unmanned test flights & Gemini 3 Gus Grissom & John Young's flight aboard the
Molly Brown.
However, from Gemini IV inward the spacecraft had no names but the missions were officially designated with Roman numerals, IV instead of 4 through XII instead of 12. This was to add the ever-elusive air of gravitas to the enterprise. Gravitas is not the strong suite of the Americans. We have no hereditary aristocracy & so all-pervasive is the myth of egalitarianism that even billionaires regularly appear in public wearing blue jeans & the wealthy often self-identify as "middle class." Astronauts—highly educated men in a serious, life & death profession but as all-American as apple pie—left to their own devices named their spacecraft after Broadway musicals (
The Unsinkable Molly Brown) & children's cartoons (the Apollo 16 Command Module
Casper was named after
Casper the Friendly Ghost). So, N.A.S.A. chose Roman numerals to lend some dignity to the American half of the Space Race. We here at
The Secret Base share N.A.S.A.'s fondness for Roman numerals, the episode of "The Explorers' Club" dedicated to Gemini IV being № DCCLIII instead of № 753, agreeing with old Hollywood that Roman numerals add an air of dignity & permanence.
"Dignity, always dignity."
—Gene Kelly, Singin' in the Rain
Alas, the mission patches were inconsistent from the jump, the retroactive patches for Gemini 3 & Gemini IV not bearing any numerals at all & the patches for Gemini V & Gemini VI-A bearing Arabic numerals. The inconsistency persisted into Project Apollo. The mission patches for Apollo 1, Apollo 8, Apollo 11, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, & Apollo 16 use Arabic numerals; the mission patches for Apollo VII, Apollo IX, Apollo X, Apollo XII, Apollo XIII, & Apollo XVII use Roman numerals. Six Arabic, six Roman; what's a fellow to do? With no clear consensus among the Apollo astronauts, I defer to the most famous mission of all, Apollo 11, & the broad public consensus of numbering Apollo missions with Arabic numerals.
