Generally, when you meet an astronaut, you’ll notice that they wear either a silver or gold pin, emblazoned with a shooting star. Silver indicates that the wearer is a member of the astronaut corps. Gold signifies a flight astronaut, one who has flown over 50 miles from the earth. Alan Bean has been awarded both. The gold pin he proudly wears today, and the silver, well, it rests somewhere on the lunar surface’s Ocean of Storms.
Bean also carried a series of commemorative pins to the moon as well. As in the creation of one of his originals, where elements of his lunar experience are incorporated into the painting itself, Lone Star contains, ground down and mixed in during the printing process, one of these pins. Creating a keepsake that can make the claim of having been to the moon.