By Sharanya Gopinathan
I really like Legos. Not just because they’re fun to play with and were a huge fixture of my own childhood, but also because once in a while they make news for seeming smart and we’re all guilty of falling into the trap of illusionary corporate activism. Anyway, in November 2016, they decided to refuse to advertise with the Daily Mail for the foreseeable future because of how irresponsible and bigoted they were. In 2014, they took note of Greenpeace activism against Arctic drilling and abandoned their partnership with Shell.
Now, and this honestly makes me so happy in a way that reminds me of how I feel about the Nokia 3310 re-launching, their newest set is going to celebrate the women of NASA. It looks like fans have been inspired by the award-winning Hidden Figures, which celebrates the lives and achievements of three brilliant Black women in NASA living under segregation. The idea for the Lego set came from fan Maia Weinstock. The set contains five figurines, a desktop frame and various NASA-themed backgrounds.
There are five women included in the set: Katherine Johnson (one of the three women that Hidden Figures is based on), a gifted mathematician who worked on the Mercury and Apollo programs, Margaret Hamilton, an MIT computer scientist who contributed to the development of software for the Apollo missions, including the moon landing, Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Nancy Grace Roman, who contributed greatly to the Hubble Space Telescope, Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space. The new set will likely be released by the end of this year.
While we’re on the subject, check out these amazing posters of some other women in science.