LEGO 10341 NASA Artemis Space Launch System's scale was determined by one piece

LEGO Icons 10341 NASA Artemis Space Launch System may not be at the scale that some were expecting, but this is thanks to a single piece.

Though LEGO 10341 NASA Artemis Space Launch System is massive, it's not quite at the same scale as 92176 NASA Apollo Saturn V for those who were hoping to stack the LEGO Ideas rocket on the launch platform and tower.

In a recent roundtable interview with LEGO fan media including Brick Fanatics, the reason behind this decision was explained as well as why the LEGO design team wanted to avoid affecting the appearance and the price too much.

"The designer who works first on the concept model tries to identify certain important pieces that are needed," shared designer Hans Burkhard Schlömer. "I think that boosters were one big argument for staying at this scale.

"Because I'm sure the designer recognised that we need at least three little cylinder pieces. Otherwise, you could build the boosters another way but it would have been a little more painful.

"We don't really have a column-shaped piece that goes from six wide to four wide so we have to use this windscreen piece. It was either that or nothing. I remember I tried to build an alternative to this piece but it doesn't really look good – you end up with gaps."

The windscreen piece being described is located at the top of the model's orange fuel tank where a pair of windscreen elements are used instead of the column cone elements used across the rest of the rocket.

The lack of a comparable column cone element in the required size left the design team with two options – turn this part of the build on its side or devise a brick-built cone and it seems that the latter proved too unsightly for the LEGO Icons set.

"There are always compromises and ultimately we want to have all the functionality and that was easier with these big widescreen pieces because there's some room on the inside that we can take advantage of using these pieces," continued Schlömer.

"I believe these pieces helped determine the scale of the whole model and there's of course also the price point to consider. So making a one-and-a-half meter bigger ramp wasn't in the stars."

10341 NASA Artemis Space Launch System is available now for $259.99 across North America, £219.99 in the UK and €259.99 in mainland Europe and you can read our review of the set by clicking here. Those who order the set before May 26, or while stocks last, will get a free 40687 Alien Space Diner as the model passes the £90 / $100 / €100 threshold.

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