Space and Lego have always gone together – both in the form of more realistic sets, with the Icons and Ideas collections, and creatively, with City and Friends. That’s part of the wonderful trick of a Lego brick or other piece, with which you can build whatever you want.
We are nearing the launch of two new space sets: Artemis 5 and the Milky Way – Lego shares some new data about a study the toy company conducted. Lego found that 86% of children between the ages of four and fourteen are interested in space, showing a renewed interest from previous years.
To celebrate, Lego asked children to design a spacecraft that would one day take them from Earth to the great unknown.
Lego was narrowed down to six winners from all entries. Their designs were turned into real sets by Didac Perez Soriano, an Associate Master Builder at Lego House.
The ships were then shown high in the sky. How? A drone show with the New York City skyline as the backdrop. The winning six ships were animated by a drone display, ranging from a T-Rex with a jetpack to a bed with wings.
You can jump to the video at the bottom or read on to learn more.
Present at the event were Dan Meehan, Creative Lead for Lego Space, and Kellie Gerardi, an astronaut, citizen scientist and one of the first 100 women in space. Ny Breaking caught up with both to explain Generation Alpha’s resurgence of space excitement, the drone show and Geradi’s space journey.
Regarding the study’s findings, Gerardi commented: “It’s very exciting to hear statistics about Generation Alpha and know that enthusiasm for space is only increasing. I am someone who believes that space is our shared past and our shared future, and so I am very excited to see that there is an innate curiosity about it.” She says Lego meets kids where they are with a platform that encourages creativity, both through this competition and with different sets.
On the Winner’s Ships, Gerardi said that “sometimes we think of space as this very academic or sterile environment,” but she sees it as “the human story.” Elaborating: “To see kids being able to apply that human lens to things like space, creativity and design is really cool.”
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♬ Walking around – instrumental version – Eldar Kedem
Mehan took the time to unpack the Lego Space theme. Space was one of the original Lego themes, along with Castle and City, which meant that the past, present and future were covered. Initially, sets were more creative than lifelike, but “lately we have been creating a lot more factual, scientific and realistic space sets.” He called the Artemis space launch systema collaboration with NASA.
Given the new data showing that 86% of children want to discover new planets, stars or galaxies; and 77% want to travel to space, Mehan says: “It’s all about going to space, but maybe something more fantastic than what (Lego) has done in recent years.” It’s about serving different target groups, possibly adults and children, with different sets.
One thing that’s new for 2024, and a first for Lego, is a common element across themes: City, Friends and Technic all have an alien design. Building elements can be used to connect sets from different themes. This theme even extends from the simplest Lego Duplo to the latest space art set design for older builders. Mehan said there is a clue “hidden in the Galaxy art SKU.”
We also discussed Gerardi’s space flight. As a payload specialist on Virgin Galactic’s Galactic 05 research mission in November 2023, Gerardi said: “It was an intensely emotional experience. I was really well prepared for science (since) I have been doing space research for ten years in microgravity, parabolic flights here on Earth.”
Gerardi says nothing really prepared her for seeing Earth with her own eyes from space. “They called it the overview effect, that cognitive shift in perspective,” she says, which made her even more motivated to show other people that vision.
Like many of us – including this author – Gerardi has been into Lego for a while, and she says one of her favorite sets was a Space Shuttle that she still has. The various details of the shuttle helped her “understand exactly what the vehicle was and what it might be like for someone who worked or lived in it.”
Gerardi also works as a citizen scientist and is still actively conducting and contributing to various research projects, including diabetes research focused on the use of continuous glucose monitors in space.
Below you can watch a full video of the drone show that Lego produced. Whether you build from the manual or take the creative route, Lego is ready to provide you with the tools you need to complete the mission.