Lego has officially revealed the Hubble Space Telescope set, and… we want it. But wanting and affording Lego are two very different things. We want the Sagrada Família set, but the roughly R13,000 price means that’s as far as we’ll get. Lego’s little Hubble set manages to actually be relatively affordable, landing for approximately R2,300 ($140).
Not a waste of space
It does, of course, ship with far fewer pieces — 1,252 — meaning you’re essentially paying a little under R2 per brick. But for space nerds, it’s well worth the price of entry to see the Hubble Telescope represented in brick form. This is actually the second such Lego set, when the Danish company released the Space Shuttle Discovery. That one included a much, much smaller version of the stargazer, leaving space nerds wanting. No longer.
Well, actually a little longer. The set is only set to launch on 1 August this year in the US. South Africa tends to be on top of everything Lego, so we expect it’ll land at roughly the same time, give or take a couple of days.
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When it does arrive, you’ll get to see the telescope in all its glory. It measures 32 x 38 x 38cm once assembled, and is covered in a bunch of panels that can be removed to get a look inside at the gyroscopes and primary and secondary mirrors packed inside. You’ll want to accurately position the solar arrays and antennae, or risk being laughed at by the aforementioned space nerds.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to get right. In addition to the little instruction booklet that’ll tell you where to put everything, the Telescope plops onto a stand (complete with an information plaque) that’ll help keep it upright on the shelf. Finally, the set includes a little astronaut mini-fig to complete the whole picture.
