50 years ago humans landed on the Moon for the first time on the 20th of July, 1969. LEGO is celebrating the 50th anniversary with the fantastic LEGO Creator Expert 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander set.
The set has 1,087 pieces, it includes two minifigures of astronauts. The price is $99.99 / 89.99€ / £84.99.
The box has some really nice artwork on the front and the back, showing details of the set. The famous quote from Neil Armstrong on the side of the box is especially cool!
Once we open the box we can see that it has 4 numbered bags, the instruction manual and the sticker sheet
The instructions are really worth to check this time because you find tons of interesting background information about the mission and the lander
We get a lot of metallic gold tiles but for some surfaces there are similar stickers prepared
There are two minifigures in the set with a new special NASA space suit torso. Their helmet is an interesting choice, doesn’t really look like the original one.
Here is the building experience from start to finish!
The Lunar Lander needs a piece of the Moon to land on, so we build first a 26×28 stud piece of the Moon’s surface. It has some really nice details like the landing crater, rocks and even footsteps. It also has a printed tile with the name of the set.
We get the American flag next to the footsteps.
The lander has multiple parts that can be separated, similarly to the original construction. The landing stage has some really cool details, impressively representing the real-life parts of the lander at minifig-scale!
The landing stage sits securely in the pre-built holes of the surface with the impressively sturdy legs. Unfortunately this design does not allow them to be folded like on the real one, but they won’t fall apart easily either.
The ascent stage can be separated into 3 pieces to improve the playability of the set. There are several control panels and terminals inside, replicating the interior of the original cabin.
Nice to see some Classic Space elements coming back from our childhood representing the thrusters of the ascent stage.
There seems to be an interesting difference between the box art and the building instructions, the 2×1 slopes with slots have a different orientation in the instructions and on the official photos.
There are many extra details on the set that are really exciting to explore, like the plaque with the signatures and the Earth, or the camera that broadcasted the famous descent of Neil Armstrong.
You can find a 2×2 tile in one of the storage compartments, representing the Apollo landing mirror that was used to measure the distance between the surfaces of Earth and the Moon with laser beams. The reflector also has it’s proper place on the base right next to one of the legs.
The overall look of the set makes it a fantastic display piece, with all the details and the shiny gold surfaces.
This is a very remarkable set, a must have for all space-fans to put it right next to the Saturn V rocket. The building experience is great, the added information in the building instructions have a great educational value and many scenes of the famous landing can be played with the lander and the minifigs.
disclaimer: this set was provided by The LEGO Group for review, all opinions expressed here are my own
