Brilliant Brand LEGO is Producing ‘Women of NASA’ Toy Set

Just when you thought Denmark couldn’t get any better, Danish brand LEGO had to go and produce a Women of NASA toy set, based on real female scientists, engineers and astronauts.

The Women of NASA are the new toys in LEGO town, the result of a Lego Ideas competition won by US science writer Maia Weinstock. The design was picked by LEGO after receiving 10,000 public votes, which made Weinstock’s design eligible for consideration.

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Photo: Maia Weinstock. Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton was part of Nasa’s 1969 moon mission

“The reaction has been overwhelming. Messages of congratulations and excitement at the prospect of this set actually being on store shelves have been pouring in,”, said Weinstock in response to her win. “I hope it sets a new example for both girls and boys,” said Ms Weinstock. “Girls, in that they can and should be engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, and boys, in that they internalise at an early age that these careers are for everyone, not only men.”

The NASA Hubble Space Telescope tweeted its excitement for the new LEGO set:

The five women portrayed are:

  • Scientist Katherine Johnson
  • Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton
  • Astronaut, physicist and educator Sally Ride
  • Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman
  • Astronaut and physician Mae Jemison. Mae Jemison was also a character in the recent, Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures which tells the story of female African-American mathematicians working at Nasa in the 1960s.
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