MacBean Tartan Design
MacBean Tartan, a cloth that traveled to the moon and back! Astronaut Alan Bean, took a piece of his Scottish clan MacBean tartan cloth up to the moon, during his Apollo 12 mission in 1969. Alan Bean: “The MacBean tartan remained on ‘Intrepid’ during our 33-hour stay on the lunar surface. The tartan has been in my personal collection since my return to Earth.”
Tartan’s started to be associated with different Scottish clans in the beginning 19th century. Before different colors and patterns were loosely associated with weavers from different areas and sometimes with different regions in the area of Scotland. In the 1815 Highland Society of London resolved that all clan chiefs must provide authentic, sealed, and signed samples of their clan’s tartan, thus naming and registration of official clan tartans began. Nowadays there are thousands of tartan samples, with an online database available here.
To design MacBean Tartan in ArahWeave CAD, check this video.
