NASA's Crew-13 mission has adopted a new patch design that openly embraces the number 13, marking a clear departure from the space agency's storied history of avoiding the superstitious numeral. This represents a notable shift from past practices, where NASA administrators actively worked to circumvent mission designation 13 due to triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13.

The agency's avoidance of 13 traces back to the Apollo era. When the STS-13 shuttle mission was planned, NASA administrator Jim Beggs, who personally feared the number, mandated a redesignation to STS-41-C. This new system encoded meaning into the digits: 4 represented fiscal year 1984, 1 indicated Kennedy Space Center, and C denoted the third planned flight. The agency maintained this complex numbering until after the Challenger disaster in 1986, when it returned to straightforward numerical designations, allowing missions like STS-113 to fly.

The Russian space program shared similar superstitions. In 2008, Roscosmos director Anatoly Perminov suggested skipping Soyuz TMA-13 due to the number's unlucky reputation, though the mission ultimately launched as planned. Both Soyuz TMA-13M, carrying Reid Wiseman, and Soyuz MS-13, which returned Christina Koch to Earth, later participated in Artemis II—NASA's recent crewed lunar flyby that surpassed the distance record originally set by Apollo 13.