Flag, National Aerospace Cadets

This flag was created for the National Aerospace Cadets (NAC), an aerospace education organization founded by Ken Beatty in 1980. Beaty organized the nonprofit NAC to prepare boys and girls to live in the space age, with lessons in areas such as astronomy, computers, electronics, model rocketry, and celestial navigation. With branches in other states in addition to Beatty's headquarters in Maryland, and as many as 250 young people in the organization in its lifetime, Beatty maintained the organization alone. Beatty also ran the Delmarva Space Training Center, an educational center for the NAC located in the basement of his home. It contained an extensive print and video library, a homemade Space Shuttle spaceflight simulator, and many models, as well as hands-on electronics, robotics, and rocketry kits.

This flag displays the logo that Beatty, who also worked as a technical illustrator, created for the NAC. Beatty donated the flag to the Smithsonian Institution's National Collection in 2008.