It took 200 astronauts and cosmonauts some 13 years to create the International Space Station. Now, just under 4,500 people may be able to achieve the same in less than 50 days. <\/p>\n
Sort of. <\/p>\n
A fan-designed LEGO version of the International Space Station has passed the halfway mark towards the 10,000 votes required for the toy company to consider producing the orbiting outpost as a commercial kit. But, the station model needs to recruit 4,500 more supporters in less than two months or the project will expire. <\/p>\n
\"This space station is out of this world!\" LEGO told the model's creator, Christoph Ruge, in a comment posted to the LEGO Ideas website on Thursday (March 12). \"Now it is time to ignite those thrusters... and make that final push to 10,000 supporters!\" [LEGO and Space Travel: A Photo Gallery] <\/p>\n
Ruge, who goes by the username XCLD on LEGO Ideas, first submitted his toy brick-version of the orbital complex in March 2014. As LEGO noted, \"in last few months, there has been a huge upswing in support,\" in part due to social media mentions by both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). <\/p>\n
\"A space station design is up for LEGO community fans to vote on,\" NASA wrote on Twitter in November. <\/p>\n
\"The International Space Station built with LEGO. But you have to vote to turn it into reality,\" ESA then wrote on Facebook the following month. <\/p>\n
Ruge's model recreates the International Space Station in its current configuration, including all of its U.S., Russian, Japanese and European modules. Built from slightly more than 1,000 LEGO bricks, it features solar array wings that rotate, an articulated robotic arm and visiting vehicles that can dock to the outpost (Ruge includes Russian Soyuz and Progress craft but has also modeled SpaceX's Dragon and Orbital ATK's Cygnus resupply ships, as well as the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV.) <\/p>\n
And like the real space station, which is about to undergo a few module relocations and additions, Ruge's LEGO ISS is modular in design. <\/p>\n
\"You can freely reconfigurate (sic) the station to your own ideas,\" Ruge wrote on his project's page, adding that his idea for the final set \"might come with additional pieces to cover upcoming upgrades of the original station.\" <\/p>\n
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