I’ve recently finally gotten around to collecting the LEGO classic Spaceman minifigures, also known as classic space astronauts. They’re very iconic and endearing, something I think the LEGO Group has caught onto. Hence why in recent years they’ve been steadily releasing the minifigures in more color variants. But a lot of them aren’t as straight forward to collect. Some of them you almost have to hunt for, since the parts that compose the minifigure have been spread throughout different methods of obtaining them. It becomes a somewhat entertaining journey to track down where each piece of the spacemen can be found.

So I figured I’d make a somewhat comprehensive guide on how to get all of them.
Let’s start with the original line-up.

The classic spacemen first appeared in 1979 with the Classic Space theme (shocker). The colors Red and White came first, followed by Yellow in 1982, and then Black and Blue in 1984. 

These are the OGs. Kids who grew up during this time period are probably very well acquainted with these funky little space explorers. There were no sets that included all 5 classic colors in one go, but 6702 Minifigure Pack and 6985 Cosmic Fleet Voyager came pretty close, with the former only missing blue and the latter only missing white.

Unfortunately, trying to seek out these minifigures in good condition will be quite a difficult task. Production for these original spacemen ended in 1988 and the printing on the torsos are prone to wearing off easily. A quick browse through the second hand market will show that a majority of the offers will include the description of visual defects such as the gold paint on the space logo having worn off.

The chinstrap on the helmet is also notoriously brittle and prone to breaking.

So much to the point that the 2014 film The Lego Movie made a reference to this phenomenon with a spaceman named Benny, whose helmet chinstrap was visibly cracked and torso print was intentionally faded.

Combine this with general issues of play-wear like scratches, cracked plastic, UV light damage, etc, it’s inadvisable to try and collect the original versions of these minifigures unless you’re willing to fork over some major cash for mint condition sets or your sentimental values override aesthetics.

So allow me to present modern alternatives.

The classic spaceman helmet received several updates throughout the years culminating with piece 50665. This latest version has a modified chin strap that is a lot stronger and less prone to breaking. So a lot of the classic spacemen have since been rereleased (at least in part) with the modern classic helmet. Note that I will mostly be focusing on three main pieces: the helmet, airtank, and the torso. Since the head, legs, and arms are relatively generic and common to find.

Most classic spaceman collectors are probably aware of 40516 Everyone is Awesome, which practically contains all of the spare parts you’ll need to create the rest of the spacemen bodies (especially useful for the purple spaceman, reasons which I’ll explain later).

The white spaceman first fully reappears in 2019 in the set 70841 Benny’s Space Squad (in which they’re given the name Jenny, so maybe a spacewoman?) and again with 10497 Galaxy Explorer in 2022 (there’s actually two of them in this set). Both of these were widely available sets with the first one being a super cheap set, making it really accessible.

In 2024, the helmet and torso piece appear in 40687 Alien Space Diner and 5008897 Tic Tac Toe (both limited promotional sets) but no white airtank unfortunately.

The airtank has appeared here and there pretty frequently throughout the years so I’m not going to list out all the sets they come in. Parts of the white spaceman have also shown up in other places over the years but they’re more obscure so I will also neglect to mention them here.

Two red spacemen also appear in 10497 Galaxy Explorer. That is kinda the only way to get him in his entirety. He does appear in a DS2023 Cosmic Daydreams, which was a limited edition LEGO employee gift set for select individuals.

Although there are ways to piece him together. The torso came in a 852331 5000437, both of which were vintage minifigure collection packs from 2008 and 2012 respectively. The air tank comes in those two sets but also a few LEGO City sets such as 60355 Water Police Detective Missions in 2022 and  952311 Diver with Underwater Scooter in 2023.

The yellow spaceman also appears in 70841 Benny’s Space Squad as Kenny. But otherwise the modern iteration of the helmet does not exist anywhere else. The torso once again appears in one of the vintage minifigure collection packs and the airtank can be found in sooooo many sets. Pretty much any LEGO City set that features firefighters has a high chance of having one.

The black and blue spacemen are tricky. The black torso has only been reissued once in a vintage minifigure collection in 2012. That will be the hardest part to find. The modern variant of the helmet appears in 43179 Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse in 2020 and 71460 Mr. Oz’s Spacebus in 2023.

The airtank thankfully is pretty common and has been in a variety of sets recently, notably also being in Mr. Oz’s Spacebus along with the helmet. While you’re at it, 10355 Blacktron Renegade also features several Blacktron minfigures with the black airtank, so it’s worth checking out if you’re looking to complete the retro space lineup. The blue torso similarly has only been rereleased in the form of vintage minifigure collections with 852753 and 5000440.

However if you don’t mind your blue spaceman being Benny with the artificially faded space logo, you can simply use any of the numerous Benny minifigures, last seen in 2019. But if you’re looking for the classic blue space helmet without the chin strap defect, it only comes in one set: 71708 Gamer’s Market, a Ninjago Prime Empire set from 2020.

This will be a trend moving forward, for a highly coveted classic spaceman helmet to only show up in some obscure non-space related set.

We have now covered all of the classic spacemen colors, but it wasn’t until 2014 that we got our first new classic spaceman color. With the release of 21109 EXO SUIT, we got our first new spaceman color since the 80s: Green. Two green spacesuit wearing individuals appeared in this set but notably they had the wrong helmet. They featured the 2446 motorcycle helmet, which started to phase out the classic space helmet some time in the mid 1980s. It wasn’t until 10 years later with the 80054 Megapolis City from LEGO Monkie Kid that we finally got the proper classic spaceman helmet in green.

Pretty cheeky putting such a coveted piece in a $190 set. The green airtank did come in the EXO SUIT set but also appeared once again in 2015 in 60097 City Square a LEGO City set. On a slightly unrelated note, the Everyone is Awesome set technically features bright light green as opposed to regular green. Which is somewhat annoying.

The next hint of a new spaceman color came in 2017 with the release of Rocket Boy for Collectible Minifigure series 17. At a quick glance you won’t see anything, but removing the rocket costume reveals the boy has a brand new classic space torso in light bluish gray. I believe this is also the first time a classic space torso comes with hands in a color that doesn’t match the main torso. So unfortunately, there are two problems with trying to complete the full light gray spaceman. Because specifically, the torso is light BLUISH gray, a type of gray LEGO introduced around 2004 to replace the old light gray. Light gray classic space helmets do exist but they’re all notably not light bluish gray. If you are not so concerned about the slight color difference, you can try to track down one of the numerous light gray helmets that came in classic castle sets from 1978 1984. You have the same problem with the airtank, which has yet to be released in light bluish gray but did release in the old light gray back in 1978 as a part of various classic town sets. The helmet might set you back a bit as it’s quite expensive to procure in a good quality.

LEGO did tease us in 2022 with a dark bluish gray classic spaceman helmet in the set 31130 Sunken Treasure Mission. Which is extremely frustrating because they had the perfect opportunity to rerelease the helmet in light (I’m forgoing to say bluish from this point forward because it’s too much of a mouthful) gray here. But noooooo they decided to use dark gray instead.

But that’s just it… There’s no dark gray space torso. Nor is there a dark gray airtank. The closest airtank would be pearl dark gray, which has appeared in various The LEGO NINJAGO Movie sets in 2017. So I suppose if you wanted to create a composite gray spaceman with various shades of gray, that is an option.

The previously mentined Benny’s Space Squad came out in 2019 which is where we get Lenny the pink spaceman. This is the only way to get the pink spaceman. The torso, airtank, and helmet are all unique to this set.

Speaking of tease, 2021 also introduced us to the first hint of a potential orange spaceman. 71741 NINJAGO City Gardens hides away a brand new orange classic space helmet underneath one of the roofs as a little easter egg. Then later the 40512 Fun and Funky VIP Add On Pack polybag came out the same summer and contained not just one, but two classic space helmets in orange! The airtank first appears in several LEGO City Arctic sets and the torso finally came out in 2024 with the 40687 Alien Space Diner and the previously mentioned Tic Tac Toe. Both being promotional sets. Is what I would say… if the entire orange classic spaceman didn’t just come out in 2020 with the LEGO Minifigure: A Visual History.

You buy this book you get the orange spaceman no strings attached. Kinda anticlimactic.

However no worries as for the purple spaceman we get a return to tradition. We have to hunt to piece together this one. Collectible minifigure series 22 gave us Space Creature, who has the coveted purple space torso. But only the torso centerpiece this time! The arms have printed details on them and the hands are a different color. So to create the authentic purple space torso you’d have to find some unprinted purple arms and hands. One suggestion is the Joker from LEGO Batman sets or some of the villains in various LEGO Monkie Kid villains. Although if you are a parts purist, and believe LEGO arms and hands should not be removed from the torso, the full authentic torso (and the rest of the minifigure) appears in the previously mentioned DS2023 Cosmic Daydreams. Otherwise you can acquire the rest of the get up with 80111 Lunar New Year Parade, which also came out in 2023.

One of the floats in the parade features three LEGO celebration minfigures, including a pirate, a medieval soldier, and lastly a guy wearing the purple spaceman helmet and airtank. As an interesting aside, prior to the New Year parade set there was a brief period of time where the cas262 Danju minifigure from Knights Kingdom rose in value on the second hand market because he was the only minifigure that had a purple motorcycle helmet. Which would have been the best alternative to the classic space helmet at the time.

2023 also gave us Brown Astronaut as just a freebie. It was part of collectible minifigure series 24. Not much more to say about it. You get the full brown classic spaceman. The helmet, torso, and airtank all only ever come in this set. So you might as well just get the whole figure.

In 2024 we got confirmation that “Minifigure Prize Machine” was selected to be the next official LEGO Ideas set. There was a fan vote to pick the next official classic spaceman color with the options being:
– Bright Bluish Green (teal. It’s just teal)
– Bright Yellowish Green (the word lime exists)
– Reddish Violet (ugh just say magenta)
– Warm Gold (this is clearly pearl gold)
– Dark Azure (I don’t even know what to say)

Teal and pearl gold ended up winning and those two finally became available when the set came out in June of 2025.

The set features a pair of each. Which is kind of a shame because I’d rather they just had four seperate colored minifigures rather than just get duplicates of two colors.

And this brings us to 2024 and 2025 with the Build-a-Minifigure exclusive torsos. LEGO brand retail stores have these minifigure towers full of assorted body parts that customers can use to build their own custom minifigs. There are a lot of exclusive pieces in these towers that often don’t appear in sets. Two pieces of interest are the dark blue and bright light blue spaceman torsos. Both pieces are part of the LEGO Dreamzzz BAM collection.

Right now these torsos exist in a vacuum and do not have their respective airtanks and helmets. At the time of writing this, we have confirmation that the dark blue helmet and airtank will be releasing with 71499 Mateo’s Spray Paint Truck in August, 2025.

There is no news on the light blue helmet+airtank yet. Although I would argue the light blue one will be the one most people are looking forward to since it is the last color needed to complete the line up of 40516 Everyone is Awesome.

Anyways

That’s all I have for now. I’ve linked all the relevant sets and minfigure info so that if you too want to pursue this collection, you have an easy way to reference where all the parts come from. One more piece of advice I’d like to give is information on how to spot counterfeits on sellers claiming they’re selling “authentic classic minifigures”.

All the minifigures from the original run of Classic Space have the old torso model. Refer to the photo above where you can see the newer torso having a more complex antistud structure. If a seller is marketing their minifigure as an authentic original classic spaceman and you receive one with the newer design, it’s likely a third party reprint.