Classic Space- uniform colour meanings?

Comments

• bobabricks Vancouver, BC, CanadaMember Posts: 1,842

  August 2015

  Red: pilots, Yellow: scientists, Blue: soldiers/security, White: explorers, Black: spies.

  

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• Legoist61 NetherlandsMember Posts: 27

  August 2015

  What with the black/white figures? Explorating spy or spying explorer?

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• akunthita USAMember Posts: 1,038

  August 2015 edited August 2015

  Green: mech pilots. ;)

  

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• jesirose McKinney, TXMember Posts: 52

  August 2015

  @Legoist61
  If you mean like this:
  
  that is Futuron, not classic space. It's from the late 80s and early 90s I believe. 
  
  
  

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• Aanchir United StatesMember Posts: 2,998

  August 2015

  According to Jens Nygaard Knudsen (who invented the minifigure and was one of the leading minds behind classic Space), "We started with only Red and White figures, we considered the red ones to be the 'bad' guys, and that they were two competing factions." (Brickjournal Issue 6, Volume 2, pp39–40) I've also read some accounts which are even more specific and state that the white figures represented astronauts and the red figures represented cosmonauts.
  
  With regard to the later colors, Jens had this to say: "The original two colors were explorers, yellow were scientists, blues were technicians or mechanics and I guess the black were warriors, but we were not allowed to make a big deal about this. We were not allowed to make war." (p40)
  

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• Fauch FranceMember Posts: 2,645

  August 2015

  it was a cold war thing?

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• The_Mad_Vulcan SeattleMember Posts: 162

  August 2015

  Well, honestly there weren't a lot of things in the 80's which weren't.

  

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• Captain_Eyebrow Test Valley, somewhere between Brickset Towers and Narnia . . . .Member Posts: 176

  August 2015

  Check with @bluemoose as he quite literally wrote the book on this . . . . . . . . . . . 

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• JayEm United KingdomMember Posts: 62

  August 2015

  Captain_Eyebrow said:

  Check with @bluemoose as he quite literally wrote the book on this . . . . . . . . . . . 

  Thanks. I should have thought of that, as I own the book.
  
  I clicked through it and it shows Pilots as red and Ground Crew as white. Scientists seem to be yellow. There are no black or blue ones, from what I can see, until Futuron.

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• JayEm United KingdomMember Posts: 62

  August 2015 edited August 2015

  Captain_Eyebrow said:

  Check with @bluemoose as he quite literally wrote the book on this . . . . . . . . . . . 

  Thanks. I should have thought of that, as I own the book.
  
  I flicked through it and it shows Pilots as red and Ground Crew as white. Scientists seem to be yellow. There are no black or blue ones, from what I can see, until Futuron.

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• oldtodd33 Denver 4800 miles to BillundMember Posts: 2,653

  August 2015

  There were black and blue in classic space. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?M=sp003&in=S
  http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?M=sp004&in=S
  

  

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• JayEm United KingdomMember Posts: 62

  August 2015

  Oh yeah, I meant the ones featured in the book.

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• Oldfan Chicagoland, IL, USAMember Posts: 700

  August 2015

  In my little Classic Space world, here is how the colors broke down:
  
  Red = Pilots/Air Crew, White = Drivers/Ground Crew, Yellow = Generalists, Blue = Science Officers, and Black = Command.  I devised these rules based roughly on the frequency with which the various colors appeared throughout the line (Black was the most rare), and their use in my first Space sets from the late 70's.  Of course, LEGO chose not to universally apply these rules to their official sets throughout the years...
  
  Futuron was a little different: with only 3 total Red astronauts across the line, they should be Command.  But the Black Futuron with white helmet in set #1974 was unique, and therefore became the Supreme Futuron Leader.
  
  Most of the later lines had defined uniforms for the "Chief" (think Unitron, Space Police II, Ice Planet 2002).  I think I liked things better the old way...
  
  It's interesting how Jens considered Red and White to be competing factions, as most sets with more than one figure contained equal numbers of each.  It's tough to be enemies when you're sharing the Galaxy Explorer together...maybe the Danes were trying to play peacemaker in the Cold War???

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• Captain_Eyebrow Test Valley, somewhere between Brickset Towers and Narnia . . . .Member Posts: 176

  August 2015

  @JayEm I asked him last year and although he did not like to be 100% prescriptive he considered the Blue minifigs to be Starship Captains and Black minifigs as Fleet Command Officers.

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