Lego’s New Women Of NASA Set Has 1 Notable Omission

Inspired by the movie “Hidden Figures,” which spotlighted the African-American women who were essentially “human computers” who calculated the orbital trajectories of John Glenn and other Mercury astronauts, the toymaker Lego has released a new product aimed at inspiring young girls to pursue STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — careers in which women lag behind.

The 231-piece Women of NASA Lego build set will be available in stores Nov. 1, and will sell for $24.99, the company said this week. It honors astronauts Sally Ride, the first woman to fly in space, and Mae Jemison, the first black woman to travel in space; astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, one of the first female executives at NASA who is known as “Mother of Hubble” for her role in planning the Hubble Space Telescope; and computer scientist Margaret Harrison, who developed the software that powered the Apollo moon missions; and

But Katherine Johnson, the mathematician whose calculations kept Glenn’s first orbital flight in 1962 on track — the central character in the “Hidden Figures” movie, played by Taraji P. Henson — is conspicuously absent, although not by design. (For more news like this, subscribe to Across America Patch for real-time breaking news alerts and free morning newsletters, or find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology science editor and writer Maia Weinstock, who proposed the idea for Women of NASA set, included Johnson in her original Lego Ideas submission, but a representative of the company told Gizmodo it wasn’t able to get the necessary permission to include Johnson in Women of NASA.

“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,” a Lego spokesperson told Gizmodo. “We naturally fully respect this decision.”

Weinstock said the set combines her interests in space exploration, the history of women in science and engineering, and Lego-building. Within 15 days of submitting her idea, some 10,000 supporters had signed on — the number needed for the toymaker to consider it.

“The set clearly touched and inspired many,” Weinstock said in a statement.

“I thought people might like to build their own display featuring minifigures of accomplished women in the STEM professions,” she said. “For the vignettes, I wanted to contextualize each person in terms of her contribution to NASA history.”

The set includes figurines of each of the woman, along with items each was known for — buildable spaceships for Ride and Jemison, a science lab that mimics the Apollo Guidance Room for Hamilton, and a replica of the Hubble Telescope and a projected photo of planetary nebula for Roman.

The release of the Women of NASA Lego set comes as women are vastly underrepresented in STEM careers, comprising only about a quarter of the workforce in those fields, though 57 percent of women participate in the U.S. workforce, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics. Women earn almost 60 percent of college degrees in the United States, but only about 35 percent receive undergraduate degrees in STEM fields.

Photo courtesy of Lego