Hot on the heels of Hidden Figures’ recent Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture, Lego has just revealed the next fan-designed set it’s officially putting into production, one that celebrates women who have played key roles in the history of the US space program.
LEGO has just revealed the next fan-designed collection to be put into production will be a ‘Women of NASA’ set, which will immortalise 5 female space pioneers.
Maia Weinstock’s Women of Nasa Lego Ideas submission reached the requisite 10,000 supporters needed for the toymaker to consider it for production.
Last week, Lego revealed that it has officially given Weinstock’s creation – which includes a desktop frame for displaying the five figurines and various NASA-themed mini vignettes – the thumbs up for production.
The final version of the set will look a little different to Weinstock’s prototype, as Lego’s designers need to ensure that it is production-friendly, but it should hit store shelves sometime later this year, or in early 2018.
Featured in Weinstock’s Women of Nasa collection are Margaret Hamilton, a computer scientist from MIT who helped the develop the flight software for the Apollo Moon missions.
Last year, Hamilton was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to the success of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
The set also includes Katherine Johnson, a mathematician and NASA researcher who helped calculate trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo programs. She is also the focus of the the new Hollywood blockbuster Hidden Figures, and recently made an appearance at the Academy Awards.
The other women in the set have equally impressive resumes. Sally Ride was a physicist who eventually became the first American woman in space back in 1983.
Nancy Grace Roman, also known as the “Mother of Hubble,” was an astronomer and NASA executive who played a key role in planning and making the Hubble Space Telescope a success. And Mae Jemison was a physician who became the first African-American woman in space in 1992.
[via Gizmodo]
