It’s no secret I’ve been a “space case” most of my life. I’m not sure when it started but I recall a book I picked up in my school library when I was in second grade that really inspired me. It never occurred to me at the tender age of seven just how significant the woman featured in that book was. I mean come on, what does gender have to do with space exploration? Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. While America had all but won the space race, Russia got a woman up there first. It wasn’t until June 18, 1983, twenty years after Valentina Tereshkova, Ride broke that particular glass ceiling. It leads me to wonder what the hell took NASA so long.
There are many notable women in S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, math) fields and particularly at NASA. The recent movie Hidden Figures highlights a few of the many contributions by Kathrine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician integral to the success of the Apollo missions. I felt the film did a wonderful job portraying the challenges Ms. Johnson had to overcome not only as a woman but as a person of color as well.
When I heard about a Lego Ideas kit featuring some of the pioneering women of NASA I was super excited. This isn’t the first Lego Ideas kit to feature women in S.T.E.M. The previous kit featuring generic female characters in a research institute was so successful they had to do a second run. I imagined this new kit would be equally popular! I waited by my computer on the evening of October 31st to be sure I had a good chance to snag one. One of the benefits to living on the west coast is not having to wait until midnight. The kit went on sale online at 9:00pm my time and I was able to get one with no trouble!
I was a little disappointed the kit didn’t include the aforementioned Johnson as she was part of the original Ideas concept. Apparently there was some conflict with obtaining her permission. However the kit did include my personal hero Sally Ride as well as Mae Jemison, Nancy Roman, and Margaret Hamilton.
I really enjoyed building the space shuttle as part of the Ride Jemison vignette. It’s really easy to build large scale models of various things out of Lego but a real challenge is building something small. Micro scale is quite difficult but also a lot of fun. The Hubble Telescope in Roman’s vignette is another good example of micro scale.
The Women of NASA kit has already sold out on Amazon and the online Lego shop proving once again the popularity of women in S.T.E.M!
End Transmission