Breathtaking Footage of 1,000 Lego Astronauts Flying to Space
Two cameras captured 1,000 Lego astronauts flying to the edge of space on a 3D-printed mini space shuttle.
The voyage was powered by a stratospheric balloon that burst after taking the Legonauts 22 miles above the Earth’s surface when they safely landed back on terra firma with the help of a parachute.
The 3D-printed space shuttle was made from a lightweight carbon composite material, built by a team of space architects and engineers from Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
There were three separate space flights with roughly 330 Legonauts going up each time and the team from Kreativ Gang, a marketing agency producing a Lego campaign, had to ensure none of the astronauts fell off the open-air shuttle.
“To make the figures stay on the space shuttle after the balloon burst was a major challenge,” says Dominik Matusinsky, an executive at Kreativ Gang, tells Space.com.
“We wanted the figures to be exposed directly to space, not to be stored inside anything. But during the free fall stage [before the parachute opened], they experienced speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour [186 miles per hour], so that was a challenge.”
In an Instagram post, the Kreativ gang explained that the Legonauts flew from Malé Bielice Airport near Partizánské in Slovakia on Saturday, May 20 on a shuttle made of carbon fiber and 3D-printed stainless steel.
“They have landed in three different places and are ready to end their journey on your nightstand,” the team jokes.
“This space feat of ours was captured by two cameras during the entire ride. One monitored the space with the mini-crew from the cockpit, and the other, attached to the shoulder, took a view of the entire platform.
“In the photos and videos, you can see breathtaking shots of the Earth as well as figures who are fully enjoying their flight into space.”
The stunt was a promotional campaign for Lego. Anyone who buys a new Lego set and registers it could win the Lego astronauts as a prize. More details are avaialbe on Kreativ Gang’s website.
Image credits: All photos by Kreativ Gang/LEGO.
