Lego Space Exploration

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Welcome to the back-history section. Below are pictures, and fictional context material to guide you. Many of the pictures can be clicked on for larger views.
[Design notes appear in yellow color and square brackets like this]

A Launch Center

Our story begins slightly in the future... Sometime during the middle of the 21st century, a large meteorite impact devestated large portions of the earth, and created a "nuclear winter" which lasted for many years. Resources were limited, and so "non-necessary activities", such as most scientific research were halted and everything was diverted towards survival and rebuilding. As it turns out, it wasn't as bad as had been expected, and society once again thrived, but with a new sense of urgency about advancing space technology, for fear of not being able to survive the next impact. Shown here is one of the many small launch centers that were constructed.

[The ground launch facilities shown here are slightly modified space sets, rather than being completely original designs. The building is actually a merged pair, one from the space shuttle set, and the other from the simulator set]

A Launch Assembly

Advances in energy storage/generation, as well as propulsion systems allowed for efficient designs, as compared to the space program of the 20th century. Vehicles could be small and operate without boosters, so long as their destinations were not far away (such as earth orbit). Vehicles and spacesuits could also operate for longer periods without refueling, recharging, or maintenance, which would prove to be a very important advancement. This also helped in spreading things out a bit by constructing many small bases/ships, rather than having the space program concentrated at one location. Here we see a shuttle being inspected for a launch.

[In these earth-based shots, the sky was pasted in using Paint Shop Pro, and Corel PhotoPaint. The ground is a piece of green wool fabric, which for some reason shows up as nearly black. The "Mountains" are actually only inches behind the models]

A Lander

Hatch Open

The moon was an obvious choice to explore and colonize. While it would take time to establish a presence here, plans were rapidly worked on, and the first of many landing craft were dispatched. The first order of business was to find safe landing spots for additional spacecraft, as well as solid ground for building structures. The first landers had crews knowledgable in geology, engineering, surveying, and other related fields. Pictured here is one type of lander used (in many cases, landers were constructed individually and thus were unique designs).

[The ground is actually plastic bags from a toy store. You may be able to make out some red tint from the text on the plastic, which I tried to hide by turning the bags inside out. Personally, I think it's oddly appropriate to have a glossy moon surface. Since the ships and men are plastic, then why shouldn't the ground be too?]

The Monolith

One day, everything changed and the future of humanity became very uncertain. On a routine surveying mission, some hapless astronauts happened upon a strange rectangular object jutting up out of the lunar soil. It was as black as night, and had dimensions measuring precisely 1x4x9. As one of the men reached to touch it, a powerful signal was emitted, which was picked up by the comm system as an unbearably loud screech (and yes, they're writhing on the ground).

[Yes, I'm ripping off movie ideas. :) The monolith here is actually made of black lego bricks, and miraculously enough, I managed to get it almost exactly to the right dimensions. It's only about a millimeter off in height]

Damaged Satellite

A moon-orbiting satellite that was used for TDRSS (pronounced "TEE-Dris", and stands for "Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System") was caught in the path of the monolith's signal, and had several components damaged by it. The astronaut shown here is attempting to repair the satellite. But the damage was worth it, since its position at the time allowed scientists to extrapolate the direction in which the signal was headed. The destination was Jupiter (or one of its moons, they couldn't be sure).

[I used black fabric for the background in this shot. Oddly enough, it was harder to edit out than the green fabric I used in other space shots. There are some color splotches that can be seen if your brightness is set too high, or if you're using a laptop screen or active matrix display]

Unloading the Pods

A mission to Jupiter seemed to be necessary at this point, if the purpose of the monolith and its signal was to be discovered. Right away plans were put into action to begin preparing for a voyage to the giant planet. Here we see several cryo-stasis pods being delivered and unloaded from a shuttle. A journey to jupiter would be a lengthy one, so for the sake of efficiency, at least half of the voyagers should be kept asleep for the trip.

[The pods actually don't fit in the shuttle's cargo bay. I can fit one in, but not two. If the cargo bay were one more unit wide, and the arm wasn't in the way, then maybe I could fit both. I was tempted to show the blue pod I made too, but I figured the shot would be obviously impossible. On another note, who would land a shuttle on such rough ground? :)]

Buh-bye, HAL!

HAL close-up

Prior to actually assembling a ship to travel to Jupiter, someone mentioned an old movie made in the previous century. After reviewing it, a decision was reached. To save everyone a lot of trouble, HAL was slapped onto a booster engine, and sent by himself. Will we hear from him again? Who knows!

[The ship was stuck on a dowel and held in the air with the green fabric backdrop behind it. I had to draw out the the dowel, darken space, and add stars. It worked reasonably well]

And this brings us to the current day... The year is 2099.

With several interplanetary missions of varying scales in planning, and the on-going colonizing of the moon, and even some mining efforts in the asteroid belt, space is anything but boring these days...

More updates will be posted here as reports are received.

[I've had a love for space for as long as I can remember. Even back when I used to play with legos as a kid, space was at the center of it. Now, as an adult I'm trying to recapture some of the wonder and creativity that I once experienced with space legos. I'm taking back a piece of my childhood without apologies... And it's fun! :)]

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