Space Pioneers to Inspire This Year’s Costume

Anyone can throw on a generic silver jumpsuit and call it a space costume. But some of the suits in our own collection aren’t generic at all. They’re built as replicas of the actual gear real astronauts wore during real missions. This Halloween, skip the costume-store spaceman and dress as someone who actually did the job. Here are three chapters of spaceflight history, and the exact costumes that let you (or your kid) step into them.

The Orange “Pumpkin Suit:” Eileen Collins and the Space Shuttle Era

If you’ve ever seen footage of astronauts walking out to the launch pad or climbing out of the shuttle after landing, you’ve seen the bright orange suit. Officially, it’s known as the Launch and Entry Suit, nicknamed the “pumpkin suit” for obvious reasons. It was a pressurized safety suit designed to keep the crew alive if something went wrong during launch and re-entry, the most dangerous minutes of a mission. 

Eileen Collins wore one on her way to becoming the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle (STS-63, 1995) and, four years later, the first woman to command one (STS-93, 1999). Mae Jemison wore the same style suit in 1992 as the first African American woman in space aboard Endeavour. Both women climbed into that orange suit knowing exactly what it was for, and both walked out the other side as firsts in the history books.

Our Space Shuttle Launch and Entry Astronaut Costume - Adult is a replica of the ones worn by the astronauts when they launch in the shuttle and when they return to Earth, right down to the zippered pockets and the “Commander” patch, which is the same rank patch a mission commander like Collins would have worn. The kids’ version includes the same NASA patches and embroidered cap in a size built for trick-or-treating. Finish it with the Kids Astronaut Helmet in Orange for a matched set.

The Blue Flight Suit: Christina Koch and the Road to the Moon

Not every iconic astronaut photo is taken in a bulky pressure suit. Most of the images we associate with astronauts day-to-day, as they appear in official portraits, training-flight photos, and mission briefings, show them in the simple blue flight suit, the same style pilots wear on NASA’s T-38 training jets.

Christina Koch has worn that blue suit for years, first as the veteran of a record-setting 328-day spaceflight and the first all-female spacewalk in 2019, and now as a mission specialist on Artemis II, which was NASA’s first crewed mission to fly beyond low Earth orbit toward the Moon in over fifty years. When Koch and her three crewmates looped around the Moon, they trained and flew wearing this kind of flight suit for the parts of the mission that weren’t spent in their launch and entry gear.

Our NASA Flight Suit - Adult gives grown-ups the same silhouette, and the NASA Astronaut Flight Suit - Kids (or the Toddler size for your smallest future astronaut) makes for an easy, comfortable costume that still tells a real story, especially if you pair it with a conversation about the crew that just flew around the Moon.

The Moonwalker’s Suit: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Apollo 11

No spaceflight image is more iconic than a white-suited astronaut standing on the Moon. That suit, the A7L, was a marvel of 1960s engineering: 21 layers of material built to protect Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from a vacuum, from 250-degree temperature swings, and from micrometeorites, all while letting them bend down and pick up rocks.

Our Apollo A7L 'Moon Suit' Replica is built to be accurate for serious collectors and cosplayers. It’s a display-and-wearable suit with a realistic and detailed Apollo helmet, a see-through gold reflective visor just like the actual Apollo helmets, and hardware fittings machined from anodized aluminum. It even comes with mission patch options spanning Apollo 11 through Apollo 17, so you can dress as Armstrong’s Apollo 11, Aldrin's Apollo 11, or any of the ten other astronauts who walked on the lunar surface. It’s a premium piece, and it sells out. If you want to be a moonwalker this year, don’t wait to check stock.

If you want the look without the collector’s price tag, our Full White Astronaut Space 6-Piece Suit bundles a white suit, helmet, gloves, boots, and backpack into one easy set, and the White Jr Astronaut Suit with Child Helmet does the same for kids. Toss in an Apollo 11 Drawstring Backpack and you’ve got a budget-friendly nod to “one giant leap” that still mimicks the real mission.

Whichever era you pick, a few accessories go a long way toward selling the story. A Jr. Astronaut Helmet w/ sound adds mission-control chatter to any suit. Astronaut Space Boots and Junior Astronaut Gloves finish the silhouette, and a Junior Astronaut Space Backpack is a nice stand-in for a life-support pack on any spacewalk-style costume.

A costume that comes with a real name attached is a different kind of fun. It always makes for a more memorable conversation at Halloween parties and trick or treating to come with a backstory when someone asks what you’re supposed to be.