Lego announces lift off for ‘Women of Nasa’ set

LONDON: Danish toymaker Lego plans to honour five women scientists, engineers and astronauts who worked for US space agency Nasa by releasing figurines of the pioneering women that its creator hopes will inspire more girls to pursue careers in science.

The women include computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, astronaut Sally Ride and Katherine Johnson, one of three black female mathematicians whose work on the US space programme in the 1960s is captured in Oscar-nominated film “Hidden Figures”.

Maia Weinstock, a science editor and the winner of a Lego competition for new sets created by fans, said she wanted to recognise women who made significant contributions at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“There are people whose stories have not really been told who have made seminal contributions to the Nasa programmes,” she said.

After submitting her design idea to a Lego website, Weinstock said it only took 15 days before her proposal garnered 10,000 public votes and attracted attention from the toymaker.

The set, which will also pay tribute to astronomer Nancy Grace Roman and astronaut Mae Jemison, will feature a mini version of the Hubble Space Telescope which was sent into space in the 1990s to collect data and take photographs.

It will also include a space shuttle with rocket boosters, and various instruments used during historic space missions like Apollo and Mercury. Lego Ideas spokeswoman Lise Dydensborg announced Weinstock as the winner on Tuesday in a video posted on Twitter.

Weinstock said “it was a dream come true” that her design will be available by late 2017 or early 2018 and hopes it will inspire girls to become more interested in science, technology, engineering and research (STEM). Thomson Reuters