LEGO 21312 - Ideas Women of NASA

21312 Women of NASA is the 19th Lego Ideas set, but certainly not the first to 'slip the surly bonds of Earth'. If I have counted (and understood what my eyes were seeing) correctly, four of the previous Ideas sets are somehow connected to space exploration, making this set the fifth. This particular set has 231 pieces, which means it is the second smallest of the Ideas sets to date. The mainly blue box looks like a luxury item, it seems very sturdy and looks positively glossy. The box is closed with two plastic seals. There are pictures of the set on both front and back of the box, and the back side shows actual photos of the real women on whom the four minifigures of the set are based. Unboxing the set leaves me with three unnumbered bags and a stapled instruction ... More21312 Women of NASA is the 19th Lego Ideas set, but certainly not the first to 'slip the surly bonds of Earth'. If I have counted (and understood what my eyes were seeing) correctly, four of the previous Ideas sets are somehow connected to space exploration, making this set the fifth. This particular set has 231 pieces, which means it is the second smallest of the Ideas sets to date. The mainly blue box looks like a luxury item, it seems very sturdy and looks positively glossy. The box is closed with two plastic seals. There are pictures of the set on both front and back of the box, and the back side shows actual photos of the real women on whom the four minifigures of the set are based. Unboxing the set leaves me with three unnumbered bags and a stapled instruction booklet with 68 pages. The booklet begins with an introduction of the four women of NASA: Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride (I was sad to find out she has passed away), Nancy Grace Roman and Mae Jemison. Then the fan designer, Maia Weinstock, gets to say a few words, after which is the turn of the Lego designers to be interviewed.The build starts with all of the 4 minifigures: Margaret Hamilton has her glasses on and is attired in a knitted (?) black dress and there are black shoes with silver buckles printed on her feet. In my opinion, those shoes are fantastic! Sally Ride is wearing a medium blue NASA uniform of sorts with printed pockets and badges at the front and is taking photographs. Nancy Grace Roman is also bespectacled, has printed pearls around her neck, and is dressed in a what might be a white cardigan over a white shirt, and brick yellow trousers. Mae Jemison is attired in a bright orange spacesuit and is carrying a white helmet. All of the four torsos are dual-sided, as are all the heads, too. Margaret Hamilton's legs are both dual-molded and printed and I think her hairpiece in medium nougat (Design ID 92083) is a recolor.After the minifigures, the build progresses to their stands: Margaret Hamilton's stand (with a stack of blue and white books and what might be a whiteboard with some notes on it) gets to be built first, then the dual stand for Mae Jemison and Sally Ride (naturally including the white, black and orange space shuttle), and the last is Nancy Grace Roman's stand with the mainly gray Hubble telescope and an image of a planetary nebula. There are 22 steps to build the first and last stands, which are the smallest, and 39 steps for the biggest stand including the shuttle, of course. None of the stands are exactly identical, but there are some similarities, such as attaching the name plates. Much to my delight, I noticed that everything is printed, there are no stickers in this set. When the build was completed, I had 13 spare parts left.The build is very easy and quick, I made only one mistake with the corner plates of the shuttle wings. For me, the most difficult part of the build was attaching the two smaller white rockets to the orange fuel tank. It was surprisingly complicated to get the white bits to connect with those elusive black connector pegs, and I had to do it twice! But still, I loved the space shuttle and the Hubble to bits, they are such clever builds! Especially the super-detailed Hubble, which is the last thing to be built. It consists only of 20 or 21 parts, depending on whether you count in the black bar which attaches the telescope to the stand. I was glad to see the set is easy to store away when not needed: the two smaller stands are both five studs deep and the large is six studs, therefore the smaller stands fit inside the glossy box even when assembled (but with the Hubble removed), while the larger one does not. Also the quite bulky shuttle needs to lose its detachable fuel-tank-and-rocket-combo in order to fit back in the box.Almost all of the printed pieces of this set, including the minifigure torsos, heads and the one pair of legs, are new and currently exclusive to this set. The only exception is Sally Ride's head (Element ID 6162427) which appears also in a Dimensions set (71257). This set marks the return of the black fez (6203937), previously only available in the Collectable Minifigure Series 4 (Soccer Player) and more recently in 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V, the white 1x1 round plate with a shaft (6174937) can also be found in three sets, as well as the black 1x1 plate round with horizontal shaft (6196548). I was quite surprised to find out that this is only the fourth appearance of the bright orange 2x2 round brick (6120639) with a hole for technic pins.There were a couple of things that left me a teensy bit mystified:1) The instructions clearly show the Hubble is displayed with the garbage can side facing the viewer, while the box art has images of the Hubble facing the other way.2) Garbage can connection of the Hubble is a bit fragile and tends to snap off.3) The brown coatrack attached to Margaret Hamilton's stand was a bit baffling, but after a quick internet search I see it is obviously from the black-and-white photo of her which was the inspiration for the whole stand.4) No lens for Sally Ride's camera.I really like this set a lot, though it is slightly on the more expensive side. In my country it is 5 cents per piece more expensive than the Old Fishing Store. But let's face it: 21312 Women of NASA is certainly a must-have for those who love space-related Lego sets. I can see an enthusiastic builder creating an entire space-themed museum around that fantastic mini-Hubble and mini-shuttle. As a side note, I would strongly recommend doing a more thorough internet search on each of the women to find out more about their fascinating lives.

The space sets this year are extremely popular and hard to own. I have found that the actual Lego stores seem to have a better "in-stock" than the website. This is also if you are fortunate enough to live near an actual Lego store. The Women of Nasa set is a great, low priced limited edition set that was done very well in my eyes. It has good play value and its educational for the kids and adults. This also compliments the Apollo ship nicely (If you can get one). The IDEAS line continues to be a great way for Lego fans to add to the already terrific line of sets.

Let me first explain the title. I got this at the Air and Space Museum in DC, and it cost $35!!! Just buy this off Lego.com. Margaret Hamilton's little display is pretty lame, I must say. "OOH! It's a stack of BOOKS! And they're all the same!" The space shuttle is kinda cool. The satellite is neat, I guess, but very fragile. The nebula/dust cloud/????? is really bad. It looks like a potato on some red torn-up sheets. it would be cooler if it was not their and instead replaced with something like a ............ computer to design the satellite? I don't know.If you like girls from NASA, have only 25 bucks on you and you're at a lego store, AND want an Ideas set, then highly recommended.