Space Salesmen

Without bosoms or ballyhoo, the newcomer is hopelessly outglittered by many of its flashy neighbors on newsstand racks. But this week the second issue of a modest quarterly named Space Journal is selling like cheesecake. As an unofficial byproduct of the Jupiter-designing experts at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Ala., the magazine treats its out-of-this-world subject in down-to-earth language. Says one Space Journalist : "The American people have a hunger for space information, and we're going to keep them well-fed."

Magazine publishers, who once thought that space was only something to sell, are learning that it also sells magazines. Space Journal is printing 102,000 copies of its current issue--more than quintupling the press run of its first--and may order another 30,000. Publisher Wayne (American Aviation) Parrish's monthly Missiles and Rockets (TIME, Oct. 15, 1956) is put out for the trade, but its circulation has grown by almost a third (to 27,700) since the first Sputnik, and its ads are up 75% over last year despite the slump. Though aviation magazines are expanding coverage of the space age, they are losing advertisers to the specialized newcomers. McGraw-Hill's Aviation Week was down 112 pages of ads in January from a year ago.

"Liquid Blonde." For the man in the street who hungers for the stars, Space Journal is designed to fill a vacuum between the trade publications and scientific magazines such as the American Rocket Society's Astronautics and Jet Propulsion. The new issue ranges from space-travel's past--a piece on Massachusetts-born Rocket Pioneer Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945)--to such futuristic items as an estimate of the cost of sending mail by rocket to the moon ($25 a letter). It even offers a relaxing bit of science fiction ("The liquid blonde girl came toward him, smiling . . ."). The slick-paper Space Journal is flawed by wooden pictures, text that sometimes strays too far ahead of or behind the layman, and an overexposure of Huntsville's Spaceman Wernher von Braun. But it already shows improvement. For future numbers it has lined up articles from such experts as Air Force Balloonist Lt. Col. David Simons and Dr. Eugen Sanger. director of West Germany's Institute of Jet Propulsion Physics in Stuttgart.

Space Journal went on the launching pad at Huntsville in 1956 when an aeronautical engineer named B. Spencer ("Billy") Isbell decided he could raise some cash for the local Rocket City Astronomical Association, Inc., by publishing a space magazine for laymen. Editor Isbell, 32, who had no publishing experience brought in ex-Newsman (Montgomery Advertiser) Ralph E. Jennings, 34 sometime ghost writer for Rocketeer von Braun. Working in off-hours, the two started one of the most unscientific countdowns in magazine launching. Isbell and Jennings simply guessed that 50-c- a copy was a fair price, decided that $200 was plenty high enough for a page of ads.

Pinter s Error. Luck saved them from bankruptcy. First, a printer's error boosted the price on the cover to 60-c-. Then after the first printing of 5,000 copies had sold out early last fall (mainly in Huntsville), they printed 15,000 more barely got them on the stands in twelve cities when the Russians launched Sputnik I on Oct. 4. Within days, 95% of the copies were gone. Says Editor Isbell: "The Russians put us in business."

To stay in business, the missilemen transferred the moneymaking side of Space Journal in January to a completely separate company in Nashville named Space Enterprises, Inc. Heading this out-ht is another pair of publishing amateurs: President George J. Merrick, 24, a junior executive in an engineering company and Vice President Richard T. Heagy, 26, an English major at Vanderbilt. One quick reform: a boost in page-ad rates from $200 to $1,200. Now that the magazine is aloft and gathering speed, its young staffers are even talking of selling 1,000,000 copies an issue by the end of 1958 Says Space Salesman Heagy: "It doesn't hurt to aim high."

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