Episodes - Afterlife: Zeus 4 Spacesuits (Updated)

The spacesuits worn by Schultz and Williams of the Zeus 4 mission were not created for Doctor Who. They were existing outfits which had first seen screen time in the 1964 film The First Men in the Moon (below).

In this they are worn by the modern day astronauts who are supposed to be the first group to set foot on the Moon, before discovering evidence of an unknown earlier British expedition. Two colour schemes are seen - yellow and a very dark blue. The most distinctive feature of the suit is the white ribbed vest, upon which the astronauts' flags have been stitched.

There are no colour images from The Tenth Planet, but we can see that Williams is wearing a lighter suit than Schultz - so presumably the Australian is wearing the dark blue version to Earl Cameron's yellow one. Their sleeves are quite short - but the movie image shows that the suits were originally intended to be worn with long gauntlets.

The suits only appear at the beginning and end of the Ray Harryhausen movie, which was based on the story by H G Wells.

However - that wasn't the starting point...

Before they started cropping up on screen, the outfits were actual high-altitude flying suits, developed by Windak Ltd in 1962 (above). Following WWII, pilots were flying at ever greater altitudes and required pressurised suits. The visor was heated to prevent misting, and the closed automatically in the event of an emergency.

The suits reappear during the Troughton era, when they are seen to be worn by the crew of The Wheel in Space. We see them most clearly at the beginning of the surviving sixth episode, when they are worn by Jamie and Zoe. Again we can see the colour difference - with Frazer Hines wearing the dark suit and Wendy Padbury the yellow.

It's difficult to see as we don't get a very good look at it, but the yellow suit also appears to feature - minus the white vest - in Professor Eldred's space museum in The Seeds of Death.

The most famous appearance by the spacesuit by far, in that it would have been seen by many millions of people, was in the second of the Star Wars movies - The Empire Strikes Back.

Darth Vader assembles a group of mercenaries and bounty hunters to track down Luke, Leia, Han and company, best known of whom is Boba Fett. Alongside him, however, is a character named Bossk - a reptilian biped who is wearing the yellow version of the Zeus 4 spacesuit. Naturally enough there was an action figure release. Bossk also features briefly in Return of the Jedi, as well as The Clone Wars animated series.

Update:

Many thanks to eagle-eyed "Reykjavik" - see comments below - for letting me know of an earlier Star Wars appearance by the spacesuit. A humanoid character named BoShek (above) wears the dark version in the cantina sequence in 1977's Star Wars: The First One. He is seen speaking to Obi-Wan at the bar when they first arrive, prior to encountering Han. Played by Basil Tomlin, apparently the character hails from Corellia.

If anyone knows of any more appearances, do let me know.