Earth to astronaut Barbie, we now have a brand new house collectible … however in all probability not for the entire causes Mattel supposed.
The toy firm is celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of its first spacesuit-clad trend doll with a new reproduction of Barbie Miss Astronaut. Initially bought in 1965 as an outfit accent alone, the 2025 set features a doll with hair and “daring purple lip” styled after these obtainable on the time, “bendable legs to take that iconic first step on the lunar floor” and reproduction silver spacesuit, white helmet, gloves, brown moon boots and American flag.
Impressed by the clothes worn by NASA’s Mercury 7 astronauts, Barbie famously donned an astronaut go well with two years after the world’s first lady lifted off for house and virtually twenty years earlier than a U.S. lady adopted.
The packaging for the Miss Astronaut reissue additionally pays tribute to the unique with its pink and white striped border. A pastel-colored illustration of a Fifties-style sci-fi rocket hovering below a ringed planet replaces the stable orange that backed the 1965 “Unique Fashions” set.
Associated: Yuri Gagarin: Information in regards to the first human in house
Sixty years later, Mattel explains the importance of the doll on the 2025 field.
“One tiny step for Barbie, one big leap for dollkind!” reads the textual content on the reverse of the Barbie Miss Astronaut 60th Anniversary Doll, which went up on the market for $55 on the Mattel Creations website at midnight EDT (0500 GMT) on Friday (March 21), after two days of unique entry for Barbie Membership 59 members.
“Lightyears forward of her time — Miss Astronaut first went galactic in 1965, earlier than any human in house.”
Wait, what?
As Mattel has even famous earlier than, the Miss Astronaut outfit got here out solely after Soviet-era cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made history by orbiting Earth in 1963. And that was two years after the world’s first human in house, Yuri Gagarin, did the identical. (The primary American to succeed in house, Alan Shepard, did so a month after Gagarin in Might 1961.)
The Mattel Creations web site has related wording, however corrects the historical past: “Mild years forward of her time, Barbie introduced her pioneering spirit to house exploration in 1965, effectively earlier than males had landed on the moon.”
The primary people to discover the lunar floor, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, touched down on July 20, 1969.
It’s unclear if Mattel acknowledged the error on the field and adjusted the textual content on the web site or if the totally different descriptions have been unrelated. It’s also unknown if the corporate has any plans to vary the textual content on the field. Mattel representatives weren’t instantly obtainable to remark.
This isn’t the primary time Mattel has reproduced the 1965 Miss Astronaut. The same doll was bought as a part of the 2010 “My Favourite Profession” sequence.
Within the 60 years since Miss Astronaut, Mattel has additionally launched a number of totally different type astronaut outfits for Barbie, together with a vibrant pink and silver spacesuit “with sparkly skirt and tights” in 1985 and an Apollo 11-inspired go well with in 1994, in commemoration of the twenty fifth anniversary of the primary moon touchdown.
In 2022, two Barbie dolls sporting one-piece outfits loosely based mostly on Russia’s Sokol strain fits have been launched to the International Space Station as a part of “Mission DreamStar,” an outreach mission to encourage women to contemplate careers in aerospace and science, know-how, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) fields.
The flown dolls have now joined different Earth-based astronaut Barbie dolls as a part of the Smithsonian’s assortment and are on display on the Nationwide Air and Area Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Middle in northern Virginia.
Mattel has additionally honored actual astronauts with Barbie dolls bearing their likeness. As a part of the model’s Inspiring Ladies sequence, Barbie dolls have been styled after first American lady in house Sally Ride, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Area Company (ESA).
Whether or not the error on the again of the Barbie Miss Astronaut 60th Anniversary Doll field leads to it being wanted by collectors continues to be to be seen, however because the field for the 2010 reissue learn and nonetheless stays true, “Immediately, the unique Miss Astronaut Barbie trend is highly-coveted and exhausting to search out. But it surely’s again — for you, to share with the following era, to like without end!”
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