The RASTRO-2 patch was designed by Paula Vargas (a JSC production artist) for fun when they were in pre-prodution for Space Shuttle mission STS-67/ASTRO-2.

The Cartoon serie the Jetsons is what inspired "RASTRO". Their dog Astro speaks with speech impediment that adds a "R" in front of each word. So when Astro the dog says "ASTRO-2" it sounds like "RASTRO-2"...