NASA’s most influential women are getting honoured in LEGO form
Inspiring.
You’re never too old to own LEGO. And the company’s latest release may just have us heading into our local Toys-R-Us to stock up.
Women of NASA LEGO pays homage to some of the women who helped shape our understanding of science, maths, engineering and the cosmos.
A 231-piece collection, the set includes the bricks to make LEGO versions of the Hubble Space Telescope, Space Shuttle Challenger and iconic women who worked for NASA.
The first American female astronaut, Sally Ride; astronomer Nancy Grace Roman; the first black woman to travel in space, Mae Jemison; and the computer scientist who developed the flight software to power the Apollo moon missions, Margaret Hamilton, have all been immortalised in LEGO form.
LEGO fan designer, Maia Weinstock, is behind the idea, which she presented to LEGO Ideas – a crowdsourcing platform which fans can submit ideas for lego products.
“In all realms of science, engineering, and technology, pioneering women have historically been underappreciated for their often groundbreaking work,” she said in a statement. “With this project, I wanted to spotlight a fantastic group of women who have made seminal contributions to NASA history. My dream would be to know that the first human on Mars — or an engineer or computer scientist who helped her get there — played with the LEGO Women of NASA as a child and was inspired to pursue a STEM career as a result.”
There is one notable absence from the collection, however. Katherine Johnson, the woman who calculated the trajectories of the Mercury and Apollo missions (and whose story was portrayed in Hidden Figures), was originally planned to be included in the set but chose not to take part.
Women of NASA LEGO will be available worldwide on November 1.
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