International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science. In celebration, let's look at set 21312, Women of NASA.

Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist who directed the Software Engineering program at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, where she and her team developed the flight software for the Apollo program.


Nancy Roman was an astronomer and NASA executive who was instrumental in the development of the Hubble Telescope.


Mae Jeminson and Sally Ride were both Space Shuttle astronauts. Jeminson was the first black woman in space as a mission specialist focusing on some of the experiments being done in orbit. After retiring from NASA she has focused on promoting science eduction. Ride was the first American woman and still the youngest American in space. After retiring from NASA she was a professor of physics at UC San Diego.


As this set came out in 2017, I was surprised it didn't also feature Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, the three mathematicians who were featured in the book and movie Hidden Figures, which came out in 2016. Maybe there was concern over licensing rights with the movie company.

Juno probe

The Juno probe was launched by NASA five years ago and recently arrived at its destination, orbiting Jupiter to study its composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. I posted on this when the probe was launched, but it's definitely worth bringing up again. The probe carried along three passengers, metal minifigs representing Galileo and the Roman gods Jupiter and Juno.

Space Walk

The Gemini 4 mission (here by Shannon Sproule) in 1965 featured the first space walk, or extravehicular activity (EVA) by an American, Edward White.

Okay, I know you were begging for more New Horizons ...

... so here you go, this one by Stefan Schindler.



BTW, as long as we're here, I know this isn't LEGO but I just had to share this from Gary Davis. "So that's why the planet was called Pluto!"

Apollo 11

Saabfan celebrated the Apollo 11 mission 46 years ago (tomorrow is the anniversary of their return to earth) in LEGO form.

One last New Horizons

One last New Horizons probe (for now at least), this time by Stuart Lucas.

New Horizons again

Chris Yee built his own New Horizons probe.

New Horizons

Yesterday, the New Horizons probe was the first ever* probe to pass by the planet** Pluto, sending back photos and other data about our distant cousin. No word yet if they found a giant cartoon dog. In commemoration of this event, Iain Heath built a LEGO rendition.

*First human-built, that is. I'm not making any claims about alien probes coming from the opposite direction.
**I know, I know, I should say dwarf planet, but when I was a kid our solar system had nine planets, and that's how it's always going to be for me.

Kepler

The Kepler is an orbiting observatory tasked with finding Earth-like planets near other stars. It was feared that the mission was a failure due to mechanical problems, but recently a work-around was implemented so the it could be used, and this week NASA announced the discovery of a planet 2.5 times the size of earth about 180 light years away. Mr Grey designed this LEGO version of the Kepler.

GOCE

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, (here in LEGO by Stefan Schindler) was a low-earth-orbit satellite operated by the European Space Agency from 2009-2013 to map out the earth's gravitational field, and also to probe the structure of the earth's mantle, with some focus on volcanic regions, and study oceanic behavior.

ISS

Locutus666 designed this great version of the International Space Station.

Welcome to the National Science Centre, Mr. Armstrong

This weekend was the Brickish Weekend at the National Space Centre in the UK. Members of the Brickish Association and other AFOLs displayed space-themed MOCs, and members of the public could help assemble a couple of large creations, I think both designed by Bright-Bricks. Bienvenue sur la lune, Mr. Armstrong was a large mosaic featuring Tintin. In the early 1950's Tintin traveled to the moon in a series of comics. A decade and a half later, after the Apollo 11 mission, Hergé, the creator of Tintin, drew this cartoon as a gift to Neil Armstrong. The other model created during the event was a large V2 Rocket. The V2 was developed by the Germans during World War II as a ballistic missile. They launched over 3000 of these at London and other Allied targets. After the war, the US, UK and USSR captured both rockets and scientists, using them to develop their own weapons. The V2 rocket design and many of the German scientists that worked on it became part of the NASA program, and ultimately led to the Saturn V rocket. Fittingly, to bring this all together, the rocket that brought Tintin to the moon in the comics was also visually based on the V2 rocket, in a red and white color scheme.

Brickish Weekend at National Space Centre UK

If you're a science-minded LEGO fan in the UK, you might want to check out the Brickish Weekend at the National Space Centre in Leicester. You'll probably see lots of great space-themed LEGO creations, and attendees will participate in building a large mosaic. Here's a segment - I've got no inside information on how the overall design of the mosaic will turn out, but I'm guessing this will be one small step for man ...

Flickr LEGO Astronautics group

A new group has started on Flickr, LEGO Astronautics, for people to share their real-space (as opposed to science fiction) creations. Check it out to see lots of great MOCs. I'm sure I'll be returning to this group often to find content for SciBricks.

Freedom 7

Legohaulic built Freedom 7, the Mercury capsule that carried Alan Shepard into space for fifteen minutes back in 1961, the first American in space.

Curiosity Rover

LEGO has released an image of the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, due to be released in January for US$30.

Voyager

Dave Shaddix built this Voyager probe, which is currently on display at the Challenger Space Center in Arizona. Voyager 1 and 2 were NASA probes launched in 1977 and sent to visit the gas giants. Both probes flew past Jupiter and Saturn, sending back amazing pictures. If you were around in 1979-1981, you may well remember these TV specials where Carl Sagan discussed the images and new discoveries. Voyager 2 then went on to fly past Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989, still the only probe to give close views of those two planets. Both probes headed on into deep space and continue to send back data. Voyager 1 is the furthest manmade object from earth, and has passed the bounds of the solar system to send back data about the interstellar regions of space.

Rosetta

Stefan Schindler built this version of the Rosetta, a European Space Agency probe currently on its way to a rendesvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Sunrise Launch

Dave Shaddix helped put together this 5-foot-square mosaic of Sunrise Launch by Robert McCall with the help of visitors to the Challenger Space Center.

Jupiter control room

During my focus on illusions for the past couple of weeks, I've passed up some great creations, like Legodrome's Jupiter control room, which he created as a commission for the French space agency CNES.