Project Hail Mary: coming in March 2025

A detailed model of the '11389 Project Hail Mary' showcased on a wooden surface, surrounded by books. The model features a spacecraft design with multiple components, set against a backdrop of a concrete wall and decorative plants.

I love a good spaceship. I love LEGO Spaceships more. With the first manned Artemis ship set to fly to the moon any day now [Update: delayed until March 2026] we are entering a new era of manned spaceflight, bound to spark imaginations around the world, looking outward with an enthusiasm unseen since the shuttle program. And in the background, sciece fiction continues to reach for the stars.

Author Andy Weir includes enough plausible science in his work to make you feel that what you are reading isn’t ‘What?’ so much as “When?” The Martian was a compelling story of Survival in a harsh, alien environment. His latest book, 2021’s Project Hail Mary was released to much acclaim and is due for release as a Motion Picture starring Ryan Gosling in March 2024.

Some how, it seems to be inevitable that would be a LEGO Set to go along with it.

Set 11389 LEGO ICONS: Project Hail Mary has 830 pieces and one minifigure. It will go on sale on the first of March 2026, priced at 179.99 AUD/ 99,99 USD / 109,99 EUR / 99,99 GBP.

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10355 Blacktron Renegade Reborn!

After a seemingly endless parade of Spaceships in 2024, throughout City, Technic, Friends, Classic and Dulplo, it seems that ICONs is trying to scrape through before the 2025 Formula One dominance kicks in. And what a way to go, with a reimagining of the 1987 classic, 6954 Blacktron Renegade. The original version cemented Blacktron’s Bad boy image by its blatant disregard for the symmetrical spaceship design that was the norm in LEGO Space to that date. The new one doubles down and embraces the legacy of the first iteration of Blacktron.

The set will be released on January 1 2025, and comes with 3 minifigures, a droid and 1151 pieces. It will be priced at $AUD179.99/USD99.99/€99.99/£89.99

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60429 Space Ship and Asteroid discovery: Telling the story in a single frame.

The new City Space sets have a lot going on – between Mechs, Space Stations, ships heading out to the stars and purple crystals all around, there might be some form of narrative developing. But what if this is your first exposure to the ‘seek the resources, mine them and convert them into an energy source’ type of storyline? How do you know what’s going on?

There is one set that clearly tells the mining story in a single frame: the 4+ set 60429 Space Ship and Asteroid. It’s another $30AUD/$20USD set due for release on January 1, 2024.

If you opt to use the increasingly irrelevent metric ‘Price per part’, it lives up to the 4+ reputation : It has around half the pieces of the 60430 Interstellar Spaceship, for the same price. At the same time, this set contains so much of the underlying narrative in such a small package that its real value can never be said to be in doubt. Read on to find out why…

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52 LEGO® Space Projects From @jeff_works – Book Review

I love a good LEGO® Spaceship. I love looking at them. I love the stories behind them. I would love to enjoy building them, but my spaceship design skills appear to be trapped somewhere in the late 1970’s. As such, I was quite excited when No Starch Press told me that Jeff Friesen’s (aka jeff_works on Instagram) new book was going to offer 52 such models, with extra inspiration and parts lists, in his latest book, LEGO® Space projects. Due for release in June, to coincide with world Astronomy month, it is currently available for pre-order, with a 25% discount on the list price of $USD24.99 (print and ebook). The eBook’s list price is $USD19.99.

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Getting Twitchy for The LEGO® Movie 2: Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship 70830 [Rapid Review]

As I continued my online protest of the delay in opening the LEGO Movie 2 in Australia until the 21st of March. (compared with 7th February 2019 in much of the Western world), I turned my eye to Twitch, a streaming platform often used for streaming live video game , to broadcast his live build stream. This time the set of choice was 70830 Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship. The stream took place on Sunday, March 17 2019. My Twitch channel can be found at twitch.tv/ramblingbrick

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