Women of NASA wins LEGO® Ideas contest

08 March 2017

Women have played critical roles throughout the history of the U.S. space program NASA. Yet in many cases, their contributions are unknown or under-appreciated — especially as women have historically struggled to gain acceptance in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. With the Women of NASA set Maia Weinstock, who is a science editor and writer, wants to celebrate the achievements of woman in these fields and five notable NASA women in particular. These five women of NASA are:

Margaret Hamilton, computer scientist:
While working at MIT under contract with NASA in the 1960s, Hamilton developed the on-board flight software for the Apollo missions to the moon. She is known for popularizing the modern concept of software.

Katherine Johnson, mathematician and space scientist:
A longtime NASA researcher, Johnson is best known for calculating and verifying trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo programs — including the Apollo 11 mission that first landed humans on the moon.

Sally Ride, astronaut, physicist, and educator:
A physicist by training, Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983. After retiring as a NASA astronaut, she founded an educational company focusing on encouraging children — especially girls — to pursue the sciences.

Nancy Grace Roman, astronomer:
One of the first female executives at NASA, Roman is known to many as the "Mother of Hubble" for her role in planning the Hubble Space Telescope. She also developed NASA's astronomy research program.

Mae Jemison, astronaut, physician, and entrepreneur:
Trained as a medical doctor, Jemison became the first African-American woman in space in 1992. After retiring from NASA, Jemison established a company that develops new technologies and encourages students in the sciences.

LEGO® Women of NASA set
In addition to a desktop frame that displays these five mini-figures and their names, the set includes vignettes depicting: a famous photo of the reams of code that landed astronauts on the moon in 1969; instruments used to calculate and verify trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo missions; a micro-scale Hubble Space Telescope and display; and a mini space shuttle, complete with external tank and rocket boosters. The set will be available in late 2017 or early 2018.

Design contest LEGO® Idea
Maia Weinstock's design beat 11 other LEGO® Idea designs that were submitted for review to the LEGO® company. LEGO® Ideas, formerly known as LEGO® CUUSOO, is a website which allows users to submit ideas for LEGO® products to the website as a project. Users can submit proposals for new LEGO® sets to ideas.lego.com. The proposals have to include a written description, a model and have to adhere to certain project guidelines. Users can support designs by voting for them on the LEGO® Idea website. If a project gets 10.000 support votes the projects qualifies for review. A review board of set designers and marketing representatives evaluate the projects that passed the 10.000 vote mark and decide which projects become new LEGO® sets. The LEGO® Review Board announces the winners 2 to 3 times a year

Once picked, a project enters the production phase. LEGO® set designers help refine the original submission into a products that’s ready for release. The original designer gets to help LEGO® with this process and apart from the credit also gets 1% of the total net sales of the product.

Since its launch 19 sets that started as LEGO® Idea projects have been produced and a total of 15 sets have passed the review phase. You may have already seen some of them on our website. The Ghostbusters Ecto 1 (21108), the Beatles Yellow Submarine (21306) and the Minecraft Micro World (21102) set for example. Minecraft™ even became a theme of its own. So if you have any idea’s for a LEGO® set yourself or want to see or support what other LEGO® fans are designing head over to ideas.lego.com.