Jemison, a physician and engineer, became the first African American woman to fly into space in 1992, logging nearly eight days aboard space shuttle Endeavour. In addition to her role as an astronaut, Ride was a physicist and advocate for science education, especially for young girls. She logged a total of two weeks orbiting Earth on two shuttle missions. In 1983, she became the first American woman to fly in space. Ride was selected with NASA's 1978 astronaut class, the first to include women and minorities. Hamilton's minifigure is matched with a build that recreates an iconic photo of her standing with a tower of her printed out Apollo Guidance Computer code. Hamilton and her team's computer programming played a critical role during the final few minutes leading up to the first lunar landing in 1969, avoiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from having to abort their approach. Hamilton led the software engineering group at MIT's instrumentation laboratory in Boston when she and her team were tapped by NASA to develop the software for the Apollo spacecraft that carried astronauts to the moon. Roman is known to many as the "Mother of Hubble" for her role in planning in the venerable orbiting observatory. She is paired in the LEGO set with a small posable model of the Hubble Space Telescope and a projected image of a planetary nebula. Roman, an accomplished astronomer, joined NASA in 1959, just one year after its founding, as the agency's first chief of astronomy. The women featured in LEGO's "Women of NASA" set span the first five decades of the U.S. The 231-piece building toy is recommended for ages 10 and older. "Explore the professions of some of the groundbreaking women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) with the LEGO Ideas Women of NASA set," "Great for role playing space exploration missions," LEGO said in a press release announcing the set on Wednesday (Oct. NASA astronauts Sally Ride and Mae Jemison, astronomer Nancy Grace Roman and computer scientist Margaret Hamilton are celebrated for their contributions to space exploration and astronomy in the new LEGO Ideas set, "Women of NASA." Based on a fan-proposed and supported design, the set includes representations of the four female space pioneers, as well as three LEGO builds that recreate the spacecraft and settings where the women made their mark on space history. “My dream would be to know that the first human on Mars - or an engineer or computer scientist who helped her get there - played with the Lego Women of NASA as a child and was inspired to pursue a STEM career as a result.– Four trailblazing figures from NASA's history are set to launch as new LEGO minifigures on Nov. “With this project, I wanted to spotlight a fantastic group of women who have made seminal contributions to NASA history,” Weinstock said in a press release. This Black NASA Mathematician Was the Reason Many Astronauts Came Home - Their Life Depended on Her Calculations Mathematician Katherine Johnson, Late Congresswomen Shirley Chisholm, and Other Black Pioneers to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom NASA Names Research Facility After Brilliant Mathematician Katherine Johnson 4 of the original 5 chose to participate.īut four other pioneers are included. They are Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to travel into space Sally Ride who is the first American woman in space Nancy Grace Roman, also known as “Mother of Hubble,” who helped plan the Hubble Space Telescope and Margaret Hamilton, who invented the modern idea of computer software. We naturally fully respect this decision.”įor those wondering: Each woman/her family had to sign off on being depicted in the final product. However, according to the press release, Johnson “chose not to be part of the set.” A company representative added in a statement to Gizmodo, “In order for us to move forward with a partner we need to obtain approval from all key people, which was not possible in this case. As the center of the “ Hidden Figures” book and movie, Johnson is responsible for verifying the calculations for the Mercury-Atlas 6 and Apollo 11 space missions. Weinstock proposed the set at the Lego Ideas platform last year as a set of five, which at that time included Johnson. Commissioned by MIT News deputy editor Maia Weinstock, the set won’t see human computer Katherine Johnson among its items. The Women of NASA Lego set is due to be released in November but it won’t include one of the most famous members of the space organization. Katherine Johnson recently had a NASA computational science building named after her.
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