The new seal of the U.S. Space Force was unveiled on January 24.
Shortly after President Trump tweeted an image of the new seal, many pointed out that it looked similar to the Starfleet Command seal, with some even claiming the government could face a copyright suit.
A quick look into the history of the logo suggests Star Trek may have actually borrowed from the Air Force to create the Starfleet logo.
The new Space Force replaces the Air Force Space Command, which was formed in 1982 to handle things like missile warnings and space launches. The seal for the Space Command resembled other Air Force seals and only saw minor changes through it’s nearly 40 years of use. That seal appears below.
The seal for the U.S. Space Force appears to simply be an updated version of the Space Command Seal.
The Space Force seal has been compared to the seal of Starfleet from the Star Trek series. That seal appears below.
This seal is attributed to artist Michael Okuda, who had been working on Star Trek for several years before coming up with the Starfleet seal. This seal was not introduced until Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which premiered in 1993. This came nearly 10 years after the creation of the USAF Space Command.
Okuda has also done design work for NASA and has suggested the Starfleet seal borrowed some basic elements from NASA logos.
