Random set of the day: Space Shuttle Discovery-STS-31
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 7470 Space Shuttle Discovery-STS-31, released during 2003. It's one of 6 Discovery sets produced that year. It contains 828 pieces, and its retail price was US$50/£49.99.
It's owned by 1,727 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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21 comments on this article
Uhhh, are those stickers digitally added?
Gahooga
A decent shuttle. Lots of Blacktron potential.
Now, I totally missed the Cross Bone Clipper of a few days ago (I've been busy) and I have a few things I want to say about it.
First off, it's more of a dingy than an actual ship. Second, this was my first, and for many years, my only pirate ship, so it has a very soft spot if my heart.
This was the biggest set I ever had as a kid. I really liked its size, its moving control surfaces, its fairly accurate shape, and especially its complicated retractable landing gear, but I hated the fact that it wasn't designed for minifigs. You could just barely squeeze one figure under the roof behind the windshield, but it bounced around on top of the landing gear and was hard to get out. Also, the Hubble Space Telescope was hard to fold up and fit inside the cargo bay. It fit, but not easily.
In my Lego town, the Space Shuttle was the transport aircraft of a group of three minifigures who made their living hunting flying electronic parasites: little drone speeders that would latch onto airplanes and spaceships and drain their electronic juices. The Shuttle carried the 'Site Hunters' airspeeder in its cargo bay until it was close to the last sighting of the 'Site, then it released the smaller craft for the chase and the kill. But I never really liked that much, because obviously the Space Shuttle isn't going to go jetting around the atmosphere like an airplane.
After a while, I broke up the set for parts, built a few starfighters that didn't last very long before being broken up again, and finally used its parts for my biggest and best childhood MOC, which I still have today. Really it's just the Space Shuttle squashed down to starfighter size, as small as I could get it and keep the retractable landing gear mechanisms unchanged, but I liked it.
Even though I really liked my starfighter, I missed the Space Shuttle, so when 10213 came out in 2010 I bought it as soon as I could ... and I've kept buying every Space Shuttle set ever since, including this year's wonderful Creator Expert 10283 Space Shuttle Discovery, which also has the Hubble Space Telescope. Last year I got another copy of 7470 from eBay, so now the kit and the MOC can coexist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-31
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Discovery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope
But the STAMPS on this kit. The STAMPS are just terrible.
Cool set, even if wings did have cutouts just so the landing gear could retract.
Got me two of these beautiful parts packs. The landing gear was revolutionary.
My first "yard sale" LEGO score, probably 10 years ago now. I wanna say I got a complete shuttle without Hubble for $10, maybe $15. Even as a youngster I knew I was getting a sweet deal.
@TheOtherMike:
I loved many of the NASA sets of that era as soon as I saw them, but when I walked through the showroom at NY Toy Fair in 2003...and I saw this model on display...and I saw the gaping holes ripped in the wings...and any interest I had in buying it evaporated never to return. I still wish I’d picked up the large Mars river model, though. I think all I got from that theme were the tiny Apollo and Mars mission sets with the full rockets.
One of my first Lego sets. Loved it.
This looks like a reasonably modern set considering it's age.
@Lego_lord said:
"This looks like a reasonably modern set considering it's age. "
A modern set of its piece count and size would unfortunately be a bit more expensive.
I got this one at a deep discount back in about 2005, and I set it aside to put together "on a snowy day". It's still sitting new-in-box in a closet, waiting for that day to come. I can't bring myself to open it at this point!
My son got this for Christmas when he was about 10 years old.
The old style creator nose and 44 curved bricks for the cargo bay doors still says Lego to me more than the modern large piece versions in the current 10283 set.
Oh I got this bad buy on a steep discount from KB Toys, before they went under, along with several other NASA sets.
I thought the retractable landing gear was pretty cool, but I never applied the stickers.
Every set was a parts pack in those days.
'released during 2003'
Not exactly the best timing for bringing out a Space Shuttle, what with STS-107...
I had this set and found it really tedious to build. I sold it later because I didn't care about it. Does that make me a bad Lego owner?
Got this set at a Turkish airport along with an entirely free large-ish Bionicle set. Unfortunately, my Space Shuttle is all yellow now :(
@graymattr said:
"I had this set and found it really tedious to build. I sold it later because I didn't care about it. Does that make me a bad Lego owner?"
I'm pretty sure the key to becoming an ADULT fab of Lego is reaching a point where you acquire some... and DON'T keep it: and not even just give it away to some other fan, but calculatedly make money off it.
At least, that was my experience. I just don't have the time or energy for EVERY bit of Lego.
@Formendacil:
Sez you. I’ve pointedly acquired stuff to use as trade bait, and still haven’t tried to unload it. I have helped out some fellow LUG members if they ran short a few pieces for something they wanted to display right away, but I haven’t reached a point where I’m feeling like I need to convert any of it to space. I don’t even like to dismantle my MOCs. Once built, I pack them for travel so I can take them to shows and display them. My oldest surviving MOC is about 30 years old at this point.
Got this one as a kid. It was like my first big set. Now the set is taken apart, the pieces are yellowed, and stickers peeled off this set.