![]() Madge added that he sees the shuttle as a "fresh expression of how we do space stuff," building on to previous recent Lego sets that featured the Saturn V moon rocket, the International Space Station and the Apollo 11 lunar module to high fidelity. "We also had to somehow link the front landing gear and the rear landing gear – and a landing function - through a hollow payload bay," Madge said with a laugh. (Image credit: LEGO)Ĭreative strengthening of the middle section was finally deployed, not least to keep the landing gear working as well. Lego NASA Space Shuttle Discovery designer Milan Madge with his creation. Related: Lego's International Space Station model is out of this world A Lego designer's NASA vision Including that trip, five shuttle crews visited Hubble until 2010, performing maintenance and upgrades that should keep the telescope operating well into the 2020s. Another shuttle crew, STS-61, visited Hubble in December 1993 to install a corrective optics package, addressing the problem. Shortly after the telescope's deployment, a flaw in the optical system was found that forced an engineering fix to address the telescope's myopia. The unexpected happened to the engineers that built Hubble. But you know full well that life doesn't always deliver the circumstances as you intended." ![]() "You get a group of people together to do a mission, and you do a lot of planning and you do write a plan. "A common adage in the astronaut corps is plans are nothing, but planning is everything," she said. She said the challenges of putting things together in the right way - even if you make a mistake during building - apply even during real-life space missions. Sullivan herself didn't use Lego as a child, although she did use erector-type sets. At $199, it's nearly twice as expensive as the Saturn V, despite a brick count that isn't much higher.The set is targeted for the adult crowd, as opposed to numerous other space shuttle sets made for children in past decades. The only thing I'm not so effusive about is the price. I had at least five "that's so cool!" moments with Discovery, which should be taken as a ringing endorsement of this set. The mark of a good Lego build, to me at least, is when you build a step, then stop and exclaim "that's so cool!" as you understand the mechanism or construction you're putting together. The undercarriage is spring-loaded, the elevons and rudder move, and it's solid enough to have decent swooshability. Over the past decade or so, Lego has adopted new building methods, sometimes known as SNOT (Studs Not On Top), that give designers much more freedom than vertically stacking bricks one atop another, and this set is a wonderful demonstration of that.Īlthough the set is aimed at adults-the box says 18+- Discovery has a decent amount of playability. STS-31 was a mission to launch Hubble, and so it is with Hubble that you begin, a build that was reminiscent of the construction techniques used in the Saturn V. The finished orbiter is a substantial 21.8 inches (55.46 cm) long with a 13.6-inch (34.6 cm) wingspan, and it lends itself well to reproduction in Lego bricks at this scale the space shuttle was covered in blocky tiles, after all. Lego has made a number of space shuttle sets over the years, but none has been as detailed as this 2,354-piece set. Discovery put the Hubble space telescope into orbit, and its crew even captured the event on IMAX cameras brought along for the ride. And earlier this April, Lego released the latest set to bear NASA's famous worm logo: space shuttle Discovery, as it was for 1990's STS-31 mission. This was an important mission, reaching the highest orbit for a space shuttle to date. ![]() Two years later, Lego followed up with the Apollo 11 lunar lander, and in 2020 it was the turn of the International Space Station. ![]() Back in 2017, the Danish toymaker brought out a highly detailed Saturn V- a model ably assembled in time-lapse by Ars' Eric Berger before its release. The ongoing collaboration between Lego and NASA continues to delight. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |