Lego Build - Galaxy Explorer (Part 1)

Okay, let’s get this started.

… Wait, how do I get this started?

I guess we can begin by taking another look at the box:

This is an obvious throwback to the old boxes from the Golden Era, with the yellow “Legoland”-style trim and what looks to be the use of an old school camera filter to give the image a washed out look. It’s not that far off from the original box:

Inside, we get a similar looking shot on the front cover of the instructions:

As usual, like all adult Lego sets, the manual has the thickness of a particularly large coffee table book.

Inside the manual, we get a bit of history about the original set:

A bit of info on the new one:

As well a page dedicated to the history of Lego Space:

Lego is always pretty good about including this kind of historical info, though I wish they would have included a few extra pages featuring photos of other old Space sets. But since that didn’t happen, I’ve taken the liberty of finding some old images of those sets, mainly screenshots of the little brochures that they used to include in some of their larger products. I’ll make a separate post with those some time in the future.

To reiterate, this set can be built into three different ships, and I was originally planning to build all of them. In the end, I only did two. I’ll explain why later, but for now, let’s look at the first (and only) variant that I actually completed, the remake of the One Man Spaceship.

Analysis - Original One Man Spaceship

This set may have been before my time, but it reminds me a lot of similar sets I once owned. Small, single person spacecraft were arguably the lifeblood of Lego Space. They were the kind of set you were most likely to own, as they were cheap enough to be given as gifts by both parents and extended family (or in some cases, even cheap enough for you to buy with your own money).

To be fair, this one’s a bit different than the ones I had, mainly because the pilot is completely enclosed inside the ship. Most of my old ships had open air cockpits (and were even smaller in size):

Still, they all have at least one thing in common, which is that they’re completely wrong in terms of scale. If we were to compare these spaceships to real life vehicles, they’re roughly equivalent in size to an ATV, or an autogyro or that tiny car they once drove on Top Gear. They don’t seem suitable for long distance travel, and are more akin to a Lunar Rover than an actual spaceship.

Anyway, I really like the look of the One Man Spaceship. It gets points for at least trying to look like a ship, and I love that it has a cockpit hatch on hinges. I definitely would have played the crap out of such a set back in the day.

Analysis - Remade One Man Spaceship

Just looking at the instruction manual, the remade version of the set looks very different . It’s not as tall or as boxy, nor are the proportions anywhere close to the original:

I feel like this is less of an homage to the One Man Spaceship, and more of a rough draft and/or practice draft that the Lego engineer came up with leading up to the remade Galaxy Explorer.

Still, I decided to put it together as a warmup of sorts. And what a pain in the ass it was!

This sums up the state of “Adult Lego” - layers upon layers of interior structure:

Tons and tons of bottom plates:

And eventually, lots of smooth pieces that hide away most of the studs:

I don’t like this approach to Lego. I know that all the interior structure makes for a much more stable build, one that won’t fall apart in your hands. But it’s not at all fun to build. It becomes monotonous, and it takes forever before you feel as if you’ve made any sort of progress.

I also hate how modern Lego is so afraid of showing studs. I’ve always considered that part of the appeal. But apparently the company (or maybe its customers) prefer sets that look more like action figures than construction toys.

Finished Model

Still, I actually like the finished model. In terms of scale, it’s much closer to what I think of when I think of a one person spacecraft (at least in terms of science fiction). And it’s small enough that even my kids can hold it while running around the room to make it fly.

In terms of gimmicks, we get a couple:

• The cockpit opens up of course
• The controls can move back and forth
• There are some compartments on the sides that open up
• The antenna on top rocks back and forth

If you were to remove some of the smooth pieces and expose more studs, I might even consider it worthy of its own individual release.

But alas, now I have to take it apart, because the real Galaxy Explorer is still waiting.

Some More Photos

I took some more photos with a black background, to make it look like it’s in space. The effect isn’t great, but I think the washed out lighting gives it a bit of a retro vibe: