Invent a Space Mission With Your Kid, Patch and All
Space grabs a kid and does not let go. You point out the moon one night, and by the following week they can tell you which planet has rings and how many astronauts they are bringing on their first mission.
Take them at their word. A mission is a better afternoon than another rocket printable, and it costs one sheet of paper.
Astronauts design their own patch
Start here, because it is the fact that makes the rest of it feel official. NASA astronauts design the patch for their own mission — they choose the pictures, colors and symbols that explain what the mission is for and stand for each person on the crew. The people flying it are the ones who draw it.
Which means the design job your kid is about to do is the real one.
Build the mission first, patch second
Four decisions, in this order. Write down the answers.
- Where are you going? The moon, Mars, a planet nobody has named yet. “Somewhere with better snacks” is a valid destination.
- What is the job? This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that makes a patch worth drawing. Are you collecting rocks, delivering a dog, checking on a lonely rover?
- Who is the crew? Themselves, obviously. Then a sibling, a friend, and whichever stuffed animal has earned it.
- What goes wrong? Optional, and the best question in the set. Every good mission story has a moment where the snacks float away.
Now the patch
A patch is a small design problem with clear rules, which is exactly the kind kids are good at:
- A shape. A circle is the easy one. A shield works. So does a triangle, if that is what they have decided.
- The names around the edge. The crew’s names go around the border. Everybody gets one.
- One picture in the middle. The thing the mission is for — the rover, the dog, the planet, the rock.
- Something for each crew member. A NASA patch carries symbols that stand for each astronaut on the team. A star apiece is the easy version of that.
Draw it on a paper plate if you want it to hang on a door, or in the corner of the mission page itself.
Turn the mission into a page to color
The mission is now one sentence long, which is all it takes:
- Type it in. “An astronaut and a friendly alien sharing a snack on the moon.” One character, one action, one place — that is the shape that draws well.
- We draw it. A bold, printable page of exactly that scene.
- Print it free. Make your kid’s mission page, free — just your email, no card. Re-print it as often as the crayons demand.
When one mission becomes a program
Space programs expand. If your kid’s has grown past a single page, CrayonBloom can turn it into a printed book — a bound story starring their astronaut or their rocket, with pages to color and space-themed activities like mazes and connect-the-dots, printed to order and shipped to your door.
The pages are always free to try; the printed book is the only thing you pay for, and the full price is shown before checkout. Have a look at the books and pricing when you are ready.
And if you just want something to print tonight
Our space coloring pages are free to download — rockets, planets, a moon rover and a friendly alien or two, drawn in bold outlines for small hands. There are a few sourced space facts on that page as well, including what is still sitting on the moon and how long a day on Jupiter lasts.
More to read: custom coloring pages from your kid’s idea and how to print coloring pages at home.