Reviews
4.8
191 reviews
21312 Women of NASA
amazed78· Review provided by LEGO · November 15, 2017
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 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.
This will go great with the Saturn V
BarberSam13· Review provided by LEGO · November 14, 2017
This is a great little set, build only took me roughly half an hour however the build was a lot more fun then I expected it to be, in this set you get three separate small builds and four mini figures Margaret Hamilton, Mae Jamison, Sally Ride and Nancy G. Roman.

The first build is of Margaret Hamilton and its of a black board with printed diagrams and a stack of books, you also get a small build

for a coat stand, this is probably the most simple of the three builds but still looks very cool.

The next build is of a small scale space shuttle, this stand includes Mae Jemison and Sally Ride, this is probably the most in depth build of the set and is so much fun to make, the shuttle also can be separated similar to the Saturn V set, a really cool little build to have.

The final build is of Nancy G. Roman which includes a small build of a satellite and a printed piece which represents the planatery nebula which is again a very cool printed piece to own.

The cool thing with this set which is the same as most of the Lego Ideas sets is that there are no stickers in this set and you get some really cool printed pieces, you get four really cool mini figures which also have very unique printing which you aren't going to get in any other sets. I will be putting this set with my Saturn V which will look awesome!

The build is very fun and very easy so it is suitable for kids, this is the sort of set which will appeal to all ages as it is very cool, fun and also educational, you get the instruction manual which has information about each of the women of NASA included in this set and tells you about everything which was accomplished.

I think for the price this is definitely good value for money and would highly recommend this to anyone!
LEGO Women of NASA 21312 - excellent set
dom222· Review provided by ebay.com · December 22, 2017
Sure, I have a daughter and wanted to shower her with Lego since she was just a fetus. These sets (like Research Institute before it) are whatever from a diversity perspective, but let it be known that this set is fun to build and very cool. To be honest, I'm not familiar with any evidence-based reports that these kinds of sets inspired girls to go into sciences, but kids and Lego go together like two flat Lego pieces stacked on one another - don't need any science-based findings to know that! My son actually likes this set too, so don't be vulnerable to thinking that this set is ONLY for girls - it's appropriate for anyone: adults and kids alike, boys girls transgender what have you. If you see this set for sale (at a reasonable cost), get it NOW! Sure, getting a lot of gifts for little ones at the holidays might give them a heightened sense of entitlement; but consider doing what I do: get it now, and save it for any appropriate occasion. Love this set. cheers/dom222
Out of this world set!
WannaGoToSpaaaace· Review provided by LEGO · November 2, 2017
This is such a great little set! I knew I wanted to buy it the moment I saw the recreation of Margaret Hamilton's iconic photograph with the huge stack of code. It's a simple idea, but executed very well and looks great on my shelves.

The inclusion of the brilliant Mae Jemison (and the tiny shuttle) made this a must-have. It's absolutely fantastic to see Lego honouring the women of NASA in this way.

I missed out on the Research Institute, but this set will let me put female scientists in all my scenes, and I couldn't be happier.

The NASA theme aside, if you're looking for a variety of female minifig parts, this set is great value. Most of my other sets are overwhelmingly male, so I'm really excited to be able to widen the number of women in my collection--including a woman of colour! Thank you Lego! It really is thrilling to see sets like this. Long may it continue!
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