I bought this set for my 4-year old son. I hesitated a lot before buying it, mainly because of the cost-per-piece factor and the aesthetics. I was trained as an aerospace engineer and at the first look the set didn't resemble the real space shuttle enough. But eventually I made up my mind because my son is so into space shuttle and it would be a good educational tool to teach him the ascending process and mission cycle of the shuttle. It took the 4-year old about five or six hours to build the whole thing, with some occasional help from me. I was delightfully surprised by how good the completed set looks. Everything looks pretty sleek, the shuttle, the main fuel tank, the solid fuel boosters, and even the transporter (although a far cry from the real thing). It immediately became my son's favorite set and he has spent lots of time playing with it.
The price-per-piece is really misleading. This set has so many large custom pieces. The fuel tank alone is made of eight large semi-cylindrical pieces that you probably won't find in any other set. The cockpit, the large wings, etc., are all unique to the shuttle series (it shares the cockpit piece with the smaller utility shuttle, which I also bought). No wonder it appears to be expensive, but I think it's worth of every penny.
The flaw is the weak structure of the fuel tank and boosters. Being long tubular shape, they have to be broken up into three segments each, and the connection can easily become loose and crack open. Although each rocket has a spine of extra long axle to hold all the pieces together, the cracking still happens from time to time. Ironically this is a problem with the real world space shuttle too, infamously the o-ring leakage that led to the Challenger accident... The other issue is the ball-shaped clip that snaps the shuttle to the fuel tank. My son has played with it for less than a week and I already noticed a bent in it. Soon I will need to buy replacement part for it. The shuttle itself, on the other hand, is built quite solid and fun to play with.
Another minor complaint is the proportion is a little bit off. In reality the fuel tank and boosters are much taller than the shuttle. But in this set the boosters are the same height as the shuttle and the fuel tank is just a notch taller. Maybe in the near future I'll buy extra pieces to make them taller myself.
Overall I recommend this set to anybody who is a shuttle fan. My son really loves it and so do I. I hope, or I dream LEGO will make a series for the famous launch vehicles, from Saturn V-Apollo to Falcon 9-Dragon... LEGO, do you hear me? Can you please make it happen, please? :D
