What do two dinosaur tails, four beehives, a six-piece roller coaster and 88 taps have to do with a rocket designed to fly astronauts to the moon?
These are all among the reimagined pieces, hidden details and “easter eggs” found in building the new Lego Icons NASA Artemis Space Launch System model, which has now been removed from store shelves. The $259.99 (€259.99 or £219.99) set, released on Saturday 18 May, includes both the rocket and the mobile launcher (ML), which consists of 3,601 pieces.
Among these many plastic “bricks” there are a few well-placed nods to the toy company’s past, as well as some creative new uses for special parts of old Lego sets. The set also includes a number of small details from the actual Space Launch System (SLS), some of which Lego describes in the kit’s 370-page instruction book, but others were thrown together without explanation.
The actual SLS was first launched in November 2022 during NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon. The flight marked the first use of a new mobile launcher produced since the Apollo program. NASA’s Artemis program will use the same infrastructure to send astronauts back to the moon in late 2025, and then aims to land the first woman, first person of color and first non-American astronaut on the moon’s south pole.
Lego Icons NASA Artemis Space Launch System: $259.99 at Lego
This faithfully recreated version of NASA’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket has all the details spaceflight fans could want, including a mobile launch tower and Orion spacecraft, and can even be broken down into several stages. View Deal
‘chutes’ and ‘ladders’
Although the Lego Icons NASA Artemis Space Launch System set focuses on the rocket, the bulk of the build is spent assembling the more than eight feet (70 cm) tall mobile launcher, and especially its support tower.
Starting at the outside of the ML’s base and continuing up two levels and then onto the deck below the tower, Lego designers redesigned the gridded slopes and Lego Technic shelves to represent stairs. These steps (along with the handrails represented using Lego water taps) provide a sense of scale.
“Different from real life [ML]”The Lego SLS platform has partially open sides that show internal details such as pipes and ladders,” reads one of the notes in the kit’s instruction book.
One of the few moving features of the set is that the hub arms extending into the rocket retract simultaneously, just like during a real launch. Although they are faithfully reproduced and a diagram appears on the box of the set, the individual arms are not labeled.
Starting at the top, there’s the crew access arm (built in part using the Lego roller coaster track for the portal cage job) that astronauts use to board the Orion spacecraft; then the Orion service module umbilical with its hoses (represented here by red and gray Lego dinosaur tails) transferring liquid coolant and air to the European power plant, and the transient cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) umbilical that feeds the fuel (liquid hydrogen). oxidizer (oxygen), purge air, gaseous nitrogen and helium, as well as electrical connections to the upper stage.
Then there is the front skirt hub of the main stage, which provides power and data as well as air and nitrogen gas; Vehicle stabilizer system that holds the SLS in place when moved (both in real life, such as when placing on a pad) and when moving the 1:144 scale model; and finally, the core stage inter-tank hub, which evacuates gaseous hydrogen from the core stage.
At the base of the rocket, Lego also recreated the aft skirt electrical hubs, aft skirt cleaning hubs, and vehicle support pylons that serve the two solid rocket boosters and support the 5.75 million pounds (2,610 tons) weight of the Space Launch System.
“As in real life, the entire rocket rests on the outskirts of the boosters,” reads Lego designer Hans Burkhard Schlömer’s instruction book.
Reused rocket parts
Just like the real SLS, which reused hardware left over from NASA’s space shuttle program for its first few flights, the Lego Icons NASA Artemis Space Launch System features some special parts, some adapted from previous sets.
“Lego item used [RS-25] The main engine nozzles were originally designed to depict a beehive but were replaced by ‘Mini hat no. 54,” Schlömer wrote.
The two tail service mast hubs on the ML’s deck are used to fill the core stage’s tanks with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the propellant that will pass through the engines during launch. Or at least that’s what actually happens.
From the outside, Lego tail service pylons look like exact miniatures of the real rig. But hidden inside them is an “easter egg” that points to a different fuel source.
“Of course a Lego rocket should be powered the Lego way. The stacked round 1×2 plates in the ‘gas station’ at the front of the rocket have a long Lego history!” Schlömer wrote.
The white, red and green pieces reference the logo colors of fictional gas station brand Octan, which was first introduced as part of the Lego City series more than 30 years ago. A similar but more obvious easter egg was included in Lego’s previous SLS model; Designed for younger builders, the 2022 Lego City Rocket Launch Center featured white, red and green fuel lines and a tank with the Octan logo.
I’m not saying that all the secret details of the SLS set are actually secret. In fact, such a piece has retained its original purpose since it was first produced.
“The cone element at the top of the boosters had already been used in the 1979 Lego Classic Space rockets (but had a solid stud with the Lego logo),” Schlömer said.
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