Lego’s ongoing effort to create impressively detailed replicas on older builders makes it harder to be a fiscally responsible adult. To help celebrate NASA’s latest success with the landing of another killer on Mars, Lego’s new Discovery Space Shuttle commemorates one of the previous achievements of the space agency: the launch of the Hubble Stempo Tmore than 30 years ago.
This year is also the fortieth anniversary of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, so Lego appropriately chose Discovery for this set because no other spacecraft has flown so many spacecraft and transported so many astronauts. Discovery was also the first NASA spacecraft to retire. While visiting the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to see it in person, it remains a challenge during an active pandemic, the new 2,354-piece Lego replica being the next best thing .
Lego’s latest version of Discovery (the toy maker has already made a few Discovery sets) is on the scale of the real spacecraft at 1:70, and is its largest to date with a length of almost 22 centimeters with a wingspan of more than 13.5 centimeters. With the scale, Lego designers were able to include many additional features this time around, including retractable landing gear, the retractable Canadarm, a rudder that splits in two to act as an air brake during landings, working heights and a spacious boot where an even ‘ can drive a detailed model of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Lego designers seem to have put so much effort into making an accurate replica of the Hubble Telescope as the shuttle it carries. Covered with 108 silver elements – the most ever in a single Lego set – it features an opening and a locking door that reveals the optics inside, as well as solar panels that can be attached once the telescope is removed from Discovery’s boot. The telescope even has a removable part for those who want to recreate the various service missions from 1993 to 2009, which helped give Hubble a second life.
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As with many of the adult model kits, Lego is also leaving stands, which can display the Discovery Space Shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope separately, and a third stand that can be mounted inside the spacecraft’s boot so that it can also be mounted together. can be displayed. . Availability is is expected to start on April 1, 2021, with a price tag of $ 200.