Shuttle Atlantis: Its Ten Weirdest Mission Patches

In May, as it prepared to take off, we offered a list of the five coolest mission patches of the shuttle Endeavour.

We wish we could do the same for the Atlantis, scheduled tentatively to go up on the last shuttle mission Friday, but it appears the ship did not provide as much inspiration as the Endeavour did.

So we give you Atlantis's ten oddest mission patches:

10. The hidden mustache face
Take a look at the very tip of the shuttle. Not the boosters, the ship itself. Do you not see a dude wearing glasses, a Charlie Chan mustache and goatee, with a little cap on his head? You will never unsee it. We are extremely grateful no Asian astronauts were on this mission.

9. Shuttle Mission 98: In which they installed a giant Pixar logo in space
We've all seen the bouncing Pixar character that squeaks its way into the logo.

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8. World's biggest playground game ever
We believe the rules of the playground game the Atlantis is obviously installing in space involve throwing a baseball into a basket, which then spits it out in a crazy direction. Sort of a space-age, highly expensive version of those eight-foot-high cones you see with multiple openings at the bottom for the ball to come out of on not-updated-recently school playgrounds.

7. Shoot-Out at High Noon
Two men face each other on a dusty Western street outside the saloon. The mothers have hustled their young'uns into the nearest shop, a nervous storekeeper has whipped down the shade on his front window. Fingers twitching near their guns, the sworn enemies squint as they wait to see who draws first....