LEGO Explorer Magazine Issue 5 – Lunar Lander 11942 Polybag

The latest issue (5) of the LEGO Explorer magazine is out now, and as I’m a subscriber I get my copy conveniently delivered to my door.

This issue focuses on a subject that I have always been interested in, Space. My young Son is also fascinated with it and loved seeing all the wonderful photos and LEGO inside.

As always we get a great LEGO polybag included which adds to the magazines subject material, a Lunar Lander. Its really nice to see that both LEGO and this magazine have taken a liking to produce something so informative and educational!

The Magazine:

As educational magazines go it’s up there with the likes of National Geographic, granted not as in depth and purely focused on LEGO and their real life counterparts.

Other renditions of LEGO magazine are packed with puzzles and activities, almost on every-other page, thankfully that isn’t the case here, yes there are a couple of games but they’re tailored more towards the slightly older LEGO fan, perhaps 7+. Although you shouldn’t rule out reading and sharing this with younger fans.

It covers a great deal about how Space and how we got there, from what happened in the way to the Moon and how they got there to controlling the spacecraft, it certainly is packed with useful information and helps spark that initial interest in all things Space.

The pages that follow expand on the Lunar Lander and Saturn V and sees LEGO Senior Designers, Lars Joe Hyldig and Carl Merriam, answering some important questions not only about the respective LEGO sets but also their real life counterparts. Truly some great content for all LEGO fans!

As usual with most LEGO magazines is they usually feature a LEGO set and dive into how that particular idea came to be, the set in the spotlight this issue is LEGO Ideas Women of NASA 21312. Having this set myself I was excited to read more about it and then share that with my Son. It’s a great set, which is now retired, and holds a special place on my shelf!

There is a whole Space Exploration time line with the incredible LEGO Lunar Lander 10266 located in the centre. The way the information is presented is very poster-esque and I see myself hanging it up next to the Space collection and more often than not using it as a reference.

Once you have finished reading and soaking up all the knowledge you can test yourself with the very cool ‘Out of this World‘ quiz. With questions such as ‘Who was the first person to walk on the Moon‘ to ‘Which is the coldest Planet in the Solar System‘. You’d agree that during these difficult times (pandemic) these fact packed magazines come in very handy for some additional learning material for young School Children.

There are of course a small amount of puzzle activities, from plotting the quickest path to a nearby Planet to joining elements and making sure no to cross their wires. My Son tends to head to these first as he can’t wait to have a go at them!

Overall another superb issue in the ever popular LEGO Explorer magazine line.

The Polybag:

It’s always a joy to receive these in the post as they come with incredible LEGO polybags, in the past we’ve had a Frog, Castle, Octopus, and a robot. This issue, being Space, is a rather cool Lunar Lander, and it comes with a fantastic selection of elements!

As you can see from the photo above there are a handful of gold pieces included, the 2×2 circular dishes and gold bars standout amongst the mainly grey parts.

The build itself is good and there are a couple of nice techniques here. Slotting the 1×1 round bricks into the body followed by a 3×3 cross plate then finally securing it all under a 3×3 grey dish was quite satisfying.

Before constructing the legs and attacjing them I had to stop and appreciate the main compact body of the Lunar Lander, I love it when LEGO design and produce these microscale builds, they cram so much detail into something so small, it’s incredible.

Adding the legs and standing up really pulls this thing together and makes it look almost identical to its real life counterpart.

Included at the back of the Magazine is a Mars style landscape which is great for using as a backdrop in your photos, albeit not very large.

Overall the Magazine and polybag is great fun and full of educational material. Featuring Space it looks at the history and timeline of Mankind’s journey into the unknown and tells use what it took to get there and what happened.

Adding a Lunar Lander polybag into the mix was such a cool idea and allows us to build something that actually existed, we can even re-enact real life scenes with it.

We highly recommend this series of LEGO Magazines, the next issue looks very exciting and here’s a sneak peek at the freebie…

Do you collect or subscribe to these or any other LEGO magazines? Let us know what you make of them in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to read this review, we truly appreciate it!