City

Lunar Research Base

A proper little moon colony with a geode that stole my whole afternoon.

Brick Rated Score

3.7/5

Set 60350 · 2022

Pieces794

Minifigs6

Year2022

Set number60350

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The verdict

This is one of those City sets that looks like a toy on the box and then surprises you with how much thought went into it.

You get a foldout dome, a VIPER-inspired rover with a working drill, a skycrane drone, and six astronauts who all have real print detail. The one thing holding it back is the price, which even fans called steep. If you or a kid in your orbit loves space and you can catch it below RRP, it is a genuinely lovely build.

Best for: space-mad kids (and the parents who quietly want to build it too)

The full review

What it is

I did not expect a City set to charm me the way this one did. The Lunar Research Base is LEGO's take on NASA's Artemis plans, a fact-finding camp at the moon's south pole, and instead of one big lump it breaks into a handful of little missions. There is a foldout dome with a botany lab and sleeping quarters, a science module, an air lock and docking tunnel, a lunar lander, a moon buggy, a skycrane drone, and a chunky rover modeled on NASA's real VIPER with a working drill. The base got me first, honestly, because those quarter domes give the whole thing a proper focal point. It measures about 40cm wide when it is all laid out, so it fills a shelf and reads as a real little colony rather than a token spaceship.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the money, because everyone who reviewed this set was. At $119.99 for the part count, it landed as the weak-value set of its wave, and more than one reviewer said even $100 would have flipped it into a recommendation. A lot of the box price is riding on a few large elements rather than on the kind of dense, clever building you get in pricier sets. The lander struts are the other honest gripe: they are a bit flimsy and I fussed for a while trying to get all of them sitting evenly. None of this makes it a bad set. It just means you want to catch it on a discount rather than pay full sticker.

Who it's for

So who is this actually for? A space-mad kid is the easy answer, and the play value is real, with interior and exterior scenes, working functions, and six astronauts to run the mission. But I would not sleep on it as an adult builder either, especially if you have a soft spot for the classic space look. The one crowd I would steer elsewhere is anyone chasing pure engineering ambition or maximum bricks for the dollar. This set is now retired, having left shelves at the end of 2023, so if it speaks to you it is worth grabbing while aftermarket prices are still gentle.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a relaxed couple of hours, and the nicest touch is that it ships as three instruction books in different formats so two or three people can build at once. That turns it into a shared afternoon rather than a solo grind. You bounce between totally different assemblies, the dome, the rover, the little moon buggy, the skycrane, so it never gets repetitive the way a big single-structure set can. The skycrane even has a working winch and an elastic-band-powered grabbing arm for hauling the crashed meteorite around, which is the sort of function kids replay endlessly.

The star part is the new geode boulder, dual molded in dark grey with a trans-light-blue core. It is a big step up from the old boulder pieces, and there is a lovely bit of real-world logic to it: because Artemis is hunting for water on the moon, the blue reads as ice rather than gemstone. Beyond that, the value is in the minifigures. All six are unique to this set, with front-and-back torso prints, four with printed legs, three with two-toned arms, and three with double-sided faces, and four of them come with both a helmet and a hair piece. For a City set that is a generous, well-printed astronaut crew.

Fun facts

01The rover is modeled on NASA's real VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), designed to hunt for water ice at the lunar south pole.
02All six minifigures wear LEGO's Classic Space logo, a nod to the theme's own history rather than to any real agency.
03The set was inspired by NASA's Artemis program and its plan to build a long-term base camp near the moon's south pole.
04It retired at the end of 2023 after a two-year run, launching at $119.99 US / £89.99 UK.