Earlier this year, the Lego company announced that it would produce a Women of NASA Lego set, based on a proposal it received from science writer Maia Weinstock. In that proposal, Weinstock wrote: “Women have played critical roles throughout the history of the U.S. space program, a.k.a. NASA or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Yet in many cases, their contributions are unknown or under-appreciated — especially as women have historically struggled to gain acceptance in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).”
Now on the market, the new Lego set immortalizes the contributions of NASA astronauts Sally Ride and Mae Jemison; astronomer Nancy Grace Roman; and computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, who we featured here this past summer. The video above gives you a complete walk-through, showing you, for example, Hamilton standing next to the large pile of source code that powered the Apollo mission (just as she did in this historic photo). Or you’ll see Nancy Grace Roman accompanied by a posable Hubble Space Telescope and a projected image of a planetary nebula. The video closes with some commentary on the social merits of this new Lego set, which you may or may not agree with.
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