Although at first glance it appears wrong, the flag on the shuttle Orbiter is not truly backward. The regulation for displaying a U.S. flag on a national vehicle states that the star field must be positioned at the front of the vessel (the nose cone end of the shuttle), as if the flag were “flying” along the side of the ship. This causes the flag to look as though it were backward on one side of the Shuttle.

The legacy of flying American flags to space started in 1961 with the flight of the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard.  Students from Cocoa Beach Elementary School in Florida purchased a flag from a local department store. The flag was rolled up and placed between cables behind Shepard’s head inside his Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft.