It was 1979, February and I was now staring at the LEGO® Catalog for the 3rd consecutive hour. I was enarmoured with the new spaceships. Fast forward to 2014 and the time had come to patch the 918 shaped hole in my collection. The 928/497 Galaxy explorer may have been the Ulimate Space Playset of the era, but the one man spaceship just seemed to do all the right things for me. Zip forward another decade and it appears that LEGO City is heading into space in a new direction.

While I might have considered the 2022 NASA Artemis sets as bringing us most of the things that we needed in a Space theme, the models were rooted in a near-future reality that may well be achieved by the end of the decade. While the elements were there, some of the sets were rooted on earth. The other daunting prospect here was the cost of entry, with 3 large sets and one moderately sized one all starting at $USD 40.

This year we see LEGO City return to space, but it feels a bit different to the last time: it feels like the inevitable narrative time skip has occurred and we are now exploring the wider galaxy. We see recurring themes encountered in Classic Space: searching for minerals. Now we a re looking for opalescent purple crystals that can be converted into batteries; Investigating the genesis of life on Strange New Worlds and shipping it all back home. To say nothing of the big silver band sown the sid of the box saying “Space”

The astronauts have a variety of robots to help them, as well as a collection of new outfits and accessories. More on that in the near future.

I was really excited when the LEGO Group sent the new City Sets over look at. Then the challenging moment arrived: which one to look at first? The small one? The Big one? The one that sat somewhere in between?

And so I Opted for the 60430 Interstellar Spacecraft. With 240 pieces, but only one (exclusive) minifigure this space ship appeared to be one of the most swooshable in the theme. And it felt like it might be the model to bear the closest resemblence to Ye Goode Olde 918.

Lets take a closer look:

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