Lego’s continued push to create impressively detailed replica sets aimed at older builders makes it more difficult to be a tax-responsible adult. To celebrate NASA’s latest success landing another rover on Mars, Lego’s new Discovery Space Shuttle commemorates one of the space agency’s earlier accomplishments: the launch of the Hubble Stempo T.elescope more than 30 years ago.
This year also marks the 40th anniversary of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, so Lego rightly chose Discovery for this set because no other spacecraft has performed so many space flights and carried so many astronauts. Discovery was also the first NASA Space Shuttle to be retired, and while visiting the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to see it in person remains a challenge during an active pandemic, Lego’s new 2354-piece replica is the second best.
Designed at 1:70 the scale of the real spacecraft, Lego’s latest version of Discovery (the toy maker has already produced a few Discovery sets) is the largest to date at nearly 22 inches in length and over 13 in wingspan. , 5 inches. That scale allowed the Lego designers to add many additional features this time around, including a retractable landing gear, the retractable Canadarm, a rudder that splits in two to serve as an air brake during landings, working heights and a spacious cargo area where an equally detailed model of the Hubble space telescope can hitchhike.
The designers at Lego turned out to have put just as much work into creating an accurate replica of the Hubble T.elescope as the shuttle that carries it. It is covered in 108 silver elements – the most ever in a single Lego set – and has an opening and closing opening door that reveals the optics inside, as well as solar panels that can be attached once the telescope is removed from Discovery’s cargo hold. The telescope even has a removable part for those who want to recreate the various service missions from 1993 to 2009 that helped give Hubble a second life.
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As with many of his adult-oriented model sets, Lego includes stands that allow the Discovery Space Shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope to be displayed separately, and a third stand that can be mounted in the spacecraft’s cargo bay for display together . . Availability is expected to start on April 1, 2021, with a price tag of $ 200.