As a kid growing up in the 70s, I was a little excited about the idea of space travel. I missed the moon landing: The Apollo programme had drawn to a close, Skylab was preparing to burn up in the atmosphere above Western Australia, and we were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Next Big Thing in space travel – the Space Shuttle.

And so it is into this milieu that as LEGO® Minifigures were unleashed on the world, that we had worlds of Castle, Town and Space unleashed on the world. Past,Present and Future. One had a passing interest, one was the mundane and every day and the other captured my imagination from the moment I saw the catalogue that read “… coming in 1979.” I may not have had many space sets as a child, but the ones I had I could still assemble by heart after 40 years, as I emerged from my dark ages and returned to my childhood LEGO Collection. Of course, while 1979 was the release date in Australia and Europe, a limited range was released in The USA in 1978.

As I have continued to explore the worlds of LEGO Classic Space and beyond, I have seen it through old catalogue scans, battered box photos and crumpled, stained instructions, while cleaning the dust and grime off bulk lots of elements, assembling weathered spacemen and wondering if I need to get my glasses cleaned.

When I saw early mentions of Tim Johnson’s book “LEGO Space: 1978-1992” turning up for preorder on Amazon, I was excited. Tim is a passionate fan who grew up in a similar era to myself and, as a self confessed parts nerd and founder of the website NEW ELEMENTARY, he was always going to bring some interesting insights to the project.