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Here we go with yet another retcon question about Star Wars. While looking up info on another film franchise, I came across this intriguing internet tidbit:

As a bit of irony in the muddled Star Wars saga, Lucas actually had a traditional Mercury / Gemini type American astronaut in the original Cantina scene. Look for him to cross from right to left with his drink near the bar. He's in full flight gear and the American flag is easy to see on his left shoulder. This has often been described in the blooper blogs as "a galaxy not quite so far away."

However, I was not able to verify the truth of the statement. What evidence is there that proves or disproves there was a Gemini Earth Astronaut that appeared in the original Star Wars Cantina scene?

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The astronaut appears about 44 minutes into Star Wars, just after 3PO moves alongside Luke at the entrance to the cantina. He's in both the theatrical release and the subsequent updated disc I have here.

scene containing the astronaut

It looks more like the Gemini suit (shown below) than Mercury.

Gemini X astronauts John Young and Michael Collins

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    Much higher-resolution image than the other answer. +1
    – TylerH
    Jan 24, 2015 at 23:59
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    It doesn't particularly look like a US flag on the arm, especially not the gigantic one you can see Michael Collins sporting in that Gemini suit. It could easily be a flag, but it's not identifiable as the US one at that quality.
    – hobbs
    Jan 25, 2015 at 4:29
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    Good pics. I'd say it doesn't look like a full US spacesuit - especially the neck portion / screw on helmet of the US suit doesn't seem to be there. The helmet in the SW pic seems to have more motocycle characteristics (neck of character seems to be visible).
    – Martin
    May 12, 2016 at 18:36
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Looking at the scene on Youtube, I believe this is the fellow they are talking about

scene astronaut

It's rather hard to tell anything about him. Fortunately, he appears on the higher definition re-release as well

hd astronaut

Tweaking the picture a bit gets us a better look

brighter

We can tell there's an arm patch, but it appears to just be black. There's certainly not a discernible flag.

It's certainly reminiscent of a generic space suit

orange space suit

But the white box on the chest really makes it look more like a Rebel flight suit

Rebel suit

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  • This has a better comparison and conclusion, and better outlays the (Out-of-U) source material then the currently accepted answer (which basically contains a picture that belongs in the question). So, whereas that one is "useful", this one contains the better answer.
    – Mazura
    May 28, 2016 at 21:28
  • You could delete everything above "tweaking the picture" to focus on your findings.
    – Mazura
    May 28, 2016 at 21:41
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    The orange NASA suit is modern (late 80's on ) and is International Orange, the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge. It's unrelated to this Star Wars scene from 1977. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_orange
    – NKCampbell
    May 7, 2017 at 22:41
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It's actually a British Windak pressure suit. We see Bo Shek wearing a black one while talking with Kenobi. This yellow one shows up again in Empire worn by Bossk.

These appeared in episodes of Dr Who and the movie the First Men in the Moon, ,lplus probably quite a few other things as well.

The suits from Men into Space make an appearance in the cantina and so to does one of the helmets from Escape From Planet of the Apes (originally appeared in altered form in the movie way...way out), though it is paired with a new suit body.

Many of these prop spacesuits had very long lives and appeared in numerous productions, with the Men into Space suit lasting into the mid 80s by which time it was over 25 years old.

Check out say hello spaceman, it's a huge resource of prop spacesuits of all kinds.

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    Hi, welcome to SF&F. You could improve this answer by including a picture of the Windak suit in real life to show the comparison.
    – DavidW
    Oct 25, 2020 at 5:46

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