Quest: The History of Spaceflight
 

Apparently this was a quarterly magazine............anyone here ever subscribe to this publication? I have a chance to buy some past issues and just wanted to get some opinions on it.

Joe

I have a couple issues from the first year, good stuff.
Mr. Bob
Starlight Dude

The early issues were the best. Once they changed their direction and made it a scholarly publish and review forum it tanked quickly for me.

Chris............roughly when did that occur?

About the same time that Quest was aborted/absorbed by their sister publication and changed their owner/publisher to some sort of University run operation.
I may have the complete set here or I might have sold them. Its been a while since I've looked for them.

Seems like it was in the late 90s, best I recall.

I think Glenn Swanson was the founder/original publisher, but then it seems he got a job as a historian at Johnson Space Center and at around the same time sold or transferred the publication to the University of South Dakota, I think.

I still get the publication and it is not bad, but it is more of an academic/scholarly work now as a previous poster has mentioned. Not a bad publication at all though. Some good in-depth interviews with key 'space' people of some sort or the other just about every issue, and other stuff as well.

But.....it is not a flashy, splashy mag either and it does have that 'scholarly' look and feel to it certainly.


Earl

I "met" Peter Alway (the author of "Rockets of the World" [and its several supplement booklets] and "The Art of Scale Model Rocketry," among other scale-related model rocketry books) in the early 1990s through Glen Swanson, who created "Quest: The History of Spaceflight" magazine. He stayed with my late friend Gary Moore when he visited Miami back then. I had one article in the magazine myself ("A Survey of Surveyor: A Look Back at America's Robotic Lunar Landing Program") in 1992 or 1993. Glen later sold the magazine, and it became less "universal" (no pun intended), no longer aiming to cater to a wider audience that included space buffs, space historians engaged in the arcana of research, and scale modelers (static display as well as model rocketry).

In its early years, Quest magazine also ran detailed articles on projects that were cancelled or never progressed beyond the proposal stage, such as the X-20 ("Dyna-Soar"), MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory), the Soviet N-1 manned lunar program, the X-15/Blue Scout satellite launch vehicle, the F-102/winged rocket satellite launch vehicle, and many others.

I really appreciate all of the comments. I have an opportunity to buy about 25-30 issues for around $80 which includes shipping. Seemed like a good deal to me, but never having seen a copy, I wanted some input on the content of the magazine.

Joe

Joe-

That sounds like a pretty good price per copy. I don't think you'll regret the purchase.


Earl