We need to remember the only border that matters is that thin blue line of atmosphere that blankets and protects us all and that our most important role as human beings is to behave as crewmates and not passengers on Spaceship Earth.
— Nicole Stott, Space for Art (2026)
With my sense, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Created in close collaboration with her crewmates during NASA’s Exploration Atmosphere research mission at NASA Johnson Space Center, Stairway to the Moon is both a work of art and a scientific artifact, an attempt to translate the invisible into form. Within NASA’s culture, mission patches serve as visual distillations of purpose, identity, and collective effort, carrying forward a tradition in which crews encode the spirit and objectives of each mission into a shared emblem. Living and working together inside a hypobaric chamber, she and her fellow crewmembers contributed to research validating prebreathe protocols designed to reduce decompression sickness risk during future lunar and Martian EVAs. This patch emerges from that shared habitat, a space where physiology and teamwork converges.
Stairway to the Moon MISSION PATCH
Romina, in collaboration with her crewmates
This mission patch, titled “Stairway to the Moon,” honors NASA’s Exploration Atmosphere, a human research analog mission conducted at the Johnson Space Center, to validate prebreathe protocols designed to reduce decompression sickness risk during future lunar and Martian surface operations.
The central image reimagines the 20-foot altitude chamber as a three-level double helix staircase rising from Earth toward the Moon. The intertwined structure forms a subtle numerical “8,” marking the eighth mission in this series, and suggests a skyward figure of infinity embedded within an architecture of ascent and descent.
The red helix represents ascent, depressurization, and oxygenation; the blue helix represents descent, repressurization, and denitrogenation as the body clears nitrogen and returns to physiological balance. Together, the helical stairs form a visual symphony of the two prebreathe protocols under study while recalling the high- and low-step tasks performed during EVA simulations. The staircase functions as both model and metaphor, an instrument of process describing the coordination required to harmonize human health and performance during EVA operations.
Nine gold stars acknowledge the crew, while three black-and-white “moon bubbles” represent the backup crewmembers and the venous gas emboli monitored by Doppler and ultrasound, translating unseen physiological events into measured visual form. The inner blue and red circular rim references the chambers of the heart and incorporates the geometry of a pressure gauge, marking the controlled reductions in ambient pressure as crewmembers and science teams observed physiology in motion through the discovered windows of the human heart.
The Moon is rendered in earthshine, an illuminated crescent formed by reflected light from Earth, reminding us that this research is conducted on Earth in service of exploration beyond it. Both staircases converge at the lunar south pole, the focal point of Artemis exploration, while the red helix extends beyond the Moon toward Mars.
Earth anchors the base of the composition. Every outward step begins here. Such is the stairway to the Moon and to the stars (sic itur ad astra), a measured sequence of ascent and descent forged by crewmates on Earth.
