NASA Sends Lego Figures to Jupiter 164
bLanark writes "NASA have teamed up with Lego and will send three specially crafted, minifigures towards Jupiter in a probe to be launched on an Atlas V rocket on Friday. The figures, representing Roman gods Jupiter and Juno, and astronomer Galileo, are machined from aluminum and are the normal size for Lego minifigures. From the article: 'This (until now) secret installation was initiated by NASA scientists, who love Lego as much as anyone and wanted to do something memorable for this mission. They approached Lego and the company loved the idea. It saw the project as a way to promote children’s education and STEM programs.'"
Re:Lets knock the trolls out of the way (Score:5, Insightful)
3) It's just f'ing kewl.
Re:Lets knock the trolls out of the way (Score:2, Insightful)
That's silly. I became interested in computers as a result of wanting to play video games. One day I thought... What is this box the game runs on, anyway? I started digging, and I've been trotting Fortune-50s ever since.
Getting kids interested in the tiniest corner of a field of science is a great way to open the door to bigger and better interests.
Kids who love LEGO are thinkers, dreamers, and imagineers. If LEGO becomes their ingress point to astronomy, who are you to judge? Bottom line, this is a great idea.