LEGO in Space

zardor writes: "According to a spacehab news release, the LEGO company shipped a few bricks up to the station for the cosmonauts to play with. (US astronauts were probably not allowed to play since they can't "engage in commercial activities"). From the news release: "The LEGO Company flew an experiment designed to help students learn about weight and mass. Space Media's STARS Academy global education program developed this experiment, and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education contributed educational materials for it. In this first-ever toy-based experiment on the ISS, cosmonauts attached a LEGO Life on Mars Red Planet Protector toy set to a mass measurement device and determined the oscillation frequency of the toy in the device in order to gauge its mass in space. Cosmonauts videotaped the experiment for educational uses. The LEGO payload also included a promotional banner, which cosmonauts unfurled and photographed in space, and 300 toy ``alien'' figures. Most of the figures will be awarded to winners of the LEGO ``Life on Mars Survival Challenge National Building Contest'' for children aged 5-12. Its a shame they flew the bricks down, otherwise they could have used them to repair that broken CanadaArm 2."

It'll poke somebody's eye out!

[willki]

As we all know from stepping on them, legos have sharp corners. Now placing them in a zero G environment, this creates an even bigger hazard. Imagine one of those astronauts getting ticked off, throwing a piece of lego at another astronaut, and having it hit them in the eye. I'm pretty sure that that would be the end of Legos in space.

"It's all fun and games until you poke somebody's eye out" -Mom

Science Experiment?

[hubie]

I'm confused about how this is a science experiment. Apart from the confusing statement in the press release about gauging its mass in space (I assume they mean that they measured the resonant frequencies of the toy), from what I can see from a picture [amazon.com] of the toy it is not an object that one would expect to behave much differently in zero-G because it appears to only be capable of rotational motion. I'm sure there are far more interesting Lego stuff they could have used (building a scale model of a space structure such as a boom used on the ISS would have been far more useful and could have been passed off as a legit experiment). They might as well have put a Pokemon card [realityrecess.com] on the "mass measurement device." At least the Shuttle Crew (STS-54) brought along much more interesting toys with them (Picture 1 [nasa.gov] and Picture 2 [nasa.gov]) and probably had more fun [nasa.gov] playing with them.

Lego Mindstorm in Zero G ROCKS

[msheppard]

I can just imagine playing with the mindstorm system in zero gravity... writing programs to spin different motors on different axis with different centers of gravity on their loads... wow. I picture some of the kewl movies of the shuttle astronauts playing with those magnetic marbles... which were also fun in earth gravity.

Useful! =)

[sachachua]

Imagine that - in an emergency situation, the astronauts can now whip out boxes of Lego Technic and make all those cool figures pictured on the box!

Hmm... Mars crawlers, spaceships... The possibilities are unlimited!

be afraid...

[spacefem]

I'm worried about how this could effect foriegn relations, I mean come on, I kicked the crap out of my sister when we were kids because she took apart my planetary combustion activator to make a barbie coffee table, what are the Russians going to do if they find out the Americans, who aren't even allowed to play with their legos, did something similar? Rat them out, that's what, it's a formula for disaster. You could of course argue that these are adults and wouldn't have problems like that, but Legos are hard to outgrow, anybody else notice that? I'm 21 and still had the urge to run out and buy that technic destroyer droid, if a friend of mine owned one I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off it, even if it meant losing job or making Russians very very angry.

oh my...

[Wyldstar]

See, if Russia ever stops making parts, or is delayed, we'll just have to ship up some legos and build the airlock/moddules all our selves! Beem Me up Scotty!