Author Topic: Spaceflight Magazine  (Read 204987 times)

Offline JJ..

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #20 on: 02/06/2011 01:51 pm »
I used to order my copies through the local news paper shop,did so for many years till I joined the BIS,
However after reading the magazine for several years (still got all the copies) sadly had to end the membership and therefore the magazine as money had become too tight,

I do miss the Satellite data for each month (Phillip Clarke) and loved the Soyuz rocket variant history that lasted for several months,

(At the time I was getting 3 other Astronomy magazines as well)

JJ..

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Offline Blackstar

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #21 on: 02/06/2011 08:26 pm »
I do miss the Satellite data for each month (Phillip Clarke) and loved the Soyuz rocket variant history that lasted for several months,

I think that Clark's stuff is now in Space News.

I know the Soyuz history articles that you refer to.  That was a great series.  There were something like a dozen of them on all the different payloads proposed for those rockets. 

Online jacqmans

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #22 on: 03/02/2011 02:51 pm »
April 2011 issue (on sale from 5 March 2011)

http://www.spaceflightmagazine.com/pages/latest-issue.html
Jacques :-)

Offline Suzy

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #23 on: 03/02/2011 06:26 pm »
I still see it in newsagents in Melbourne, but quit buying it years ago - it's nearly AU$20 now! :( I wish NK were available in English, but I suppose it's not feasible for them.
« Last Edit: 03/02/2011 06:28 pm by Suzy »

Online jacqmans

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #24 on: 04/06/2011 08:32 pm »
May 2011 issue (on sale from 9 April 2011)

http://www.spaceflightmagazine.com/pages/latest-issue.html
Jacques :-)

Offline aurora899

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #25 on: 04/07/2011 09:42 am »
I took Spaceflight for about 20 years but gave up about 18 months or so ago following a massive hike in the cover price. I understand the reasons behind the BIS' decision: it was actually much cheaper to buy 12 copies of Spaceflight on the news-stand each year than receive it via a BIS subscription (assuming that you didn't take advantage of any of the other benefits membership brought); and, if I recall, the BIS was hit by a huge and unforeseen tax bill after they hosted some astronautical conference.
I must admit that I haven't even seen Spaceflight in WHSmith (one of the UK's leading newsagents) for many months. Mind you, the staff never seemed to know where to put it. One month it would be in the transport section alongside the aviation magazines, and the next month it'd be on the other side of the shop with the astronomy journals!
It's a decent magazine though. My only criticism is that on occasion some of the articles are too long. I remember one that ran to 10-12 pages and took up about 25% of the magazine! The Editor would probably have been better splitting that piece across two issues.
But over the years it has contained some great articles from people like Blackstar and Michael Cassutt. I've still got August 1988's issue that included a detailed piece by the latter on the history of the DoD's Manned Spaceflight Engineers program, which came complete with many photos of individual MSEs.

Edit: Just seen that there's a BIS-specific thread:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=24459.0
« Last Edit: 04/09/2011 01:53 pm by aurora899 »

Online jacqmans

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #26 on: 05/04/2011 07:47 pm »
June 2011 issue (on sale from 8 May 2011)

http://www.spaceflightmagazine.com/pages/latest-issue.html
Jacques :-)

Offline layton

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #27 on: 05/17/2011 11:51 pm »
If I could buy a reasonably-priced PDF subscription version of this, I would.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #28 on: 05/18/2011 02:24 am »
I missed this a little earlier, so I'll comment on it now.

1-I must admit that I haven't even seen Spaceflight in WHSmith (one of the UK's leading newsagents) for many months. Mind you, the staff never seemed to know where to put it. One month it would be in the transport section alongside the aviation magazines, and the next month it'd be on the other side of the shop with the astronomy journals!

2-My only criticism is that on occasion some of the articles are too long. I remember one that ran to 10-12 pages and took up about 25% of the magazine! The Editor would probably have been better splitting that piece across two issues.

1-This is a problem that a lot of book stores and newsstands have.  If they have multiple titles that are similar that makes it easy.  But what to do about the unique stuff?  I read an interesting article a couple of years ago written by a guy who used to work in a book store and noticed that a certain magazine (a fire apparatus journal--i.e. fire trucks) was not selling.  He got permission to put it in with the books about dangerous jobs and it started selling.  He theorized that people were unaware of its existence and therefore didn't look for it in the magazines section, but they grabbed it up when it appeared in the books that they were looking at.  Spaceflight should be sold with the space books.

2-I agree with your specific complaint (don't know which issue or article you are referring to).  But I'd also point out that this is one area where magazines are still superior to the internet.  You can still get long-form articles in newspapers and magazines.  The kind of articles that go into a subject in great depth.  The internet just doesn't do that stuff.  I like Spaceflight because every so often they do a big article with lots of photos and you're not going to find that kind of thing on the internet, or at least not at the same quality.

I haven't seen the latest issue.  I'm not sure if Barnes & Noble is still carrying Spaceflight.  I have a bunch of articles submitted to them for future issues, including something on the Discovery program, an article on Edwards AFB's test stands (see the other thread in the NSF history section), something on Luna-Glob, and something else that I have forgotten.

Offline pargoo

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #29 on: 05/18/2011 05:11 am »
     I canceled my subscription 10 or more years ago when a sudden drop in picture quality/variety made it not worth the money.  Since then I have seen nothing really interesting or new in the few issues I've browsed through at my local newsagent.  I want to see historic Russian stuff particularly, but despite the collapse of the USSR nothing's changed on that front, sadly.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #30 on: 05/18/2011 12:47 pm »
     I canceled my subscription 10 or more years ago when a sudden drop in picture quality/variety made it not worth the money.  Since then I have seen nothing really interesting or new in the few issues I've browsed through at my local newsagent.  I want to see historic Russian stuff particularly, but despite the collapse of the USSR nothing's changed on that front, sadly.

The image quality did drop around that time.  Around 2005 or so it got better and I think it's been pretty good since then.

There was also a lot of Russian stuff in the latter 1990s, and has not been since.  The reason is that the people who produced that have gone on to other things.

Offline aurora899

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #31 on: 05/18/2011 05:52 pm »
I missed this a little earlier, so I'll comment on it now.

2-My only criticism is that on occasion some of the articles are too long. I remember one that ran to 10-12 pages and took up about 25% of the magazine! The Editor would probably have been better splitting that piece across two issues.

2-I agree with your specific complaint (don't know which issue or article you are referring to).  But I'd also point out that this is one area where magazines are still superior to the internet.  You can still get long-form articles in newspapers and magazines.  The kind of articles that go into a subject in great depth.  The internet just doesn't do that stuff.  I like Spaceflight because every so often they do a big article with lots of photos and you're not going to find that kind of thing on the internet, or at least not at the same quality.


I have a feeling that the 10-12 page article might have been about the Indian Space Program. But, it was a good 2-3 years ago, and I could well be wrong.
The point you make about Spaceflight providing in depth features on topics not found elsewhere is, though, a good one. I buy a number of magazines and it’s interesting (actually ‘depressing’ would be a better word) to see how many of them have “dumbed-down” in recent years. There seem to be far more photographs (which is not necessarily a bad thing) while articles and features tend to be much shorter (some no more than a page). So despite the various criticisms levelled at Spaceflight magazine, at least dumbing-down is not one of them.

As I said in my earlier posting, I haven’t seen Spaceflight for a while but I’d be interested to know whether there has been any reduction in the number of pages. The UK economy is emerging from its deepest recession for years, and I’ve noticed that rather than hiking cover prices, many publishers are subtly slimming their magazines down!
« Last Edit: 05/18/2011 05:53 pm by aurora899 »

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #32 on: 05/18/2011 08:49 pm »
I have not noticed a reduction in the number of pages in Spaceflight.

As I mentioned earlier, photo (reproduction) quality was very poor for awhile, and has improved considerably.

You are right about how magazines in general have gone to shorter articles.  They are doing various things to try and maintain a readership that is used to the internet.  There is also good reason to believe that peoples' brains are being rewritten.  We are getting trained to be scatterbrained, rather than focus on single topics for long periods of time.

Offline brueyh1976

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #33 on: 05/21/2011 12:28 am »
They used to get it on subscription where I used to work. I was the only one who read it. I did consider subscribing but couldn't afford it at the time. I did find it very interesting and will give the subscription it's due consideration :)
"Disovery, Houston - Roll Program"  "Roger Roll Discovery"

Offline Nittany Lion

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #34 on: 05/21/2011 01:13 am »
We are getting trained to be scatterbrained, rather than focus on single topics for long periods of time.



I am in the process of creating several college courses for Internet delivery. A requirement is that all videos, narrated PowerPoints, example exercises, and sample solutions must be no longer than five minutes, as that is the maximum attention span of college-age people.

So, in twenty years, when you visit your doctor, your lawyer, your financial adviser, or your clergy-person, you’ll need to be able to conduct your business in five minutes or less.


Online jacqmans

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #35 on: 06/03/2011 03:17 pm »
July 2011 issue (on sale from 8 June 2011)

http://www.spaceflightmagazine.com/pages/latest-issue.html

Jacques :-)

Online jacqmans

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #36 on: 07/13/2011 03:24 pm »
August 2011 issue (on sale from 10 July 2011)

http://www.spaceflightmagazine.com/pages/latest-issue.html
Jacques :-)

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #37 on: 07/13/2011 05:58 pm »
It's a nicely-done magazine, filled with lots of interesting info. If you don't subscribe, you should.

Offline astronut7

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #38 on: 07/17/2011 12:37 pm »
I am still waiting for my June 2011 and August 2011 issues to arrive in the mail. 
I, too, do agree that Spaceflight by the BIS is a very good magazine.  I enjoy reading the articles.
Thank you.

Online jacqmans

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Re: Spaceflight Magazine
« Reply #39 on: 08/05/2011 10:22 pm »
Sept 2011 issue (on sale from 10 August 2011)

http://www.spaceflightmagazine.com/pages/latest-issue.html
Jacques :-)

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