On November 1, LEGO Group will launch its Women of NASA LEGO set.
Under the headline “Ladies rock outer space”, LEGO fan Maia Weinstock presented her idea for a Women of NASA LEGO set to the LEGO Ideas crowdsourcing platform. Here it gained lots of support from other fans and was selected for production for its “inspirational value as well as build and play experience”.
The women featured in the set are:
- Nancy Grace Roman: An American astronomer who was one of the first female executives at NASA. She is known to many as the “Mother of Hubble” for her role in planning the Hubble Space Telescope
- Margaret Hamilton: A computer scientist who developed the flight software that powered the Apollo moon missions
- Sally Ride: A physicist and astronaut, and the first American woman in space in 1983
- Mae Jemison: An engineer, physician and astronaut. She became the first African American woman to travel in space in 1992
In the original proposal, five NASA women were included but the set includes just four, as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician, chose not to be part of the project.
Celebrating women in STEM
Maia Weinstock says her Women of NASA project was a way for her to celebrate accomplished women in STEM professions.
“In all realms of science, engineering and technology, pioneering women have historically been underappreciated for their often ground-breaking work. We have also seen that when girls and women are given more encouragement in the STEM fields, they become more likely to pursue careers in these areas,” she commented.
“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.”
“It was a great experience to give these amazing women their new LEGO identity and a great honour to personally present Margaret Hamilton with her very own mini-figure,” said LEGO Design Manager Tara Wike. “What they have achieved is truly inspiring to me, and I hope it will inspire children to make their dreams come true.”
