Lego In Space

Lego teamed up with NASA to launch a Lego version of the International Space Station aboard the real one. Flight engineer Satoshi Furukawa spent two hours building the model in a glove box to keep the pieces from floating around and becoming a potential hazard for the space station.

After assembling the station, Furukawa used it as a model to make educational videos to educate kids about living and working in space. Once the videos were done, the model had to be disassembled and stored to ensure it did not cause any problems. It seems, according to Furukawa, that there is a combustion issue with Lego bricks in space.

The Japanese astronaut also built Lego models of lunar exploration and Mars Rovers and the Hubble Space Telescope, earning him the title “The Lego Guy.” Despite the challenge of dealing with floating pieces and doing the assembly while wearing heavy rubber gloves — according to his crewmates — Satoshi enjoyed building the models.

For more photos and a video of Satoshi with the ISS model check out the article at Collect Space. If you want to build your own International Space Station pickup the Lego Discovery: International Space Station and build it on your kitchen table. Unless you have a glove box to build it in, of course.

If Lego REALLY cared about us they would already have a colony on Mars built from Lego. Don't tell me they CAN'T do it. They just choose NOT to. Lego is sucky that way.

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/02/lego-iss/