It’s been quite a while since a mustache has made its way to space. Rookie NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway is about to change that.

Acting as pilot on this week’s planned launch of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station, active Navy commander was clean shaven when introduced as an astronaut candidate in 2021. But now he’s got what he calls a classic naval aviator mustache going on.

“The mustache is a lot of fun. The crew has enjoyed it,” he said Sunday during an interview from quarantine at Kennedy Space Center. “We’ve had a bunch of laughs about it. Some of out support staff, particularly our flight surgeons, have grown mustaches as well, in support and solidarity of my mustache.”

Hathaway, his mustache, and three crewmates — commander and fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev — are set to lift off in the Crew Dragon Freedom atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 no earlier than Friday at 5:15 a.m. for an eight-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

The launch has been delayed two days longer than originally planned after NASA cited weather concerns along the launch corridor.

NASA astronauts have mostly been follicle-free, especially in the early Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, although mustaches and beards often grew during missions as astronauts just stopped shaving.

It wasn’t until the space shuttle era of the 1980s and ’90s that mustaches started making regular flights, although most have gone back to regular use of razor blades in the new millennium.

Of the 38 active astronauts, of which 23 are men, only Central Florida’s Luke Delaney, who has yet to fly to space, has an official portrait featuring significant facial hair. Delaney, who went to both DeLand and Deltona high schools in his youth, and was also chosen as as an astronaut in 2021, sports a full beard and mustache.

Among NASA’s 330 male active and retired astronauts, only 44 have facial hair in their official portraits, or just over 13%. Of those, only four have full beards. Of note, the first astronaut to bring a full beard to space was Paul Scully-Power, an Australian who flew on Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984.

One of the most recent mustaches to fly to the space station was by now retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who gained social media fame during his last trip to space in 2013 during which he recorded a video covering David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” His popularity even begat a LEGO minifigure, mustache included.

Many of the mustaches that have made it to orbit have been championed by astronauts who were Navy fighter pilots.

“I have mine in solidarity of all the naval officers and men and women throughout history that have worn mustaches to sea,” Hathaway said. “I get to wear one to space.”

Two of NASA’s most recognizable astronauts, twins Mark and Scott Kelly, who were both Navy pilots when chosen to join NASA in 1996, came into their training sporting mustaches. But Mark said the pair kept getting confused with one another, so Scott, younger than Mark by six minutes, opted to shave his off for his astronaut career while Mark kept his.

Mark, famously tried to prank NASA leadership after he had retired from NASA as brother Scott was set to fly in 2015 for a year-long mission in space, during which NASA was using the twins in a study about long-duration effects on the human body by comparing measurements of Scott in space and Mark on the ground.

As Scott was prepped to launch on a Soyuz out of Kazakhstan, Mark arrived to join NASA leadership to watch the launch minus his signature mustache.

During a call with Scott after his arrival to the space station, then NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said of Mark: “He fooled all of us. He almost gave us a heart attack when he came out on launch morning with no mustache. So that’s the only way I can tell you two apart.”

Both astronauts are retired, but Mark, a U.S. Senator in Arizona, remains shorn while Scott has brought back the mustache he sported while in the Navy.

For Hathaway, he said the mustache is more than just fun, but a symbol of how each member of Crew-12 brings different assets to the mission to the space station.

“We have all different backgrounds, and that’s what makes the crew a success,” he said. “We bring something different to the adventure and to the mission, and that helps us succeed as a crew. For me as a naval aviator, it helped me grow my mustache right now. That’s a really key part of my background.”

Meir noted his mustache was pretty impressive as crewmates Adenot and Fedyaev chuckled.

Hathaway said, though, it reminds him of how the naval aviator community challenged him to be the best version of himself, although he’s also curious about how it will act in space.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what it does up there, how crazy it gets,” he said.