91Èȱ¬

Sky at Night Magazine will this week launch Man In Space, a 116-page collector's edition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic first spaceflight on 12 April 1961.

On sale from 7 April with a newsstand price of £6.99, the A4 sized perfect-bound title will have an initial print run of 20,000 and will be available exclusively at WH Smith.

Featuring articles by leading spaceflight writers and packed with rarely-seen photos of astronauts and their spacecraft, Man In Space covers the entire span of mankind's five decades beyond Earth, from the earliest test flights to the present and future of spaceflight with privately owned companies such as Virgin Galactic.

Graham Southorn, Editor of Sky at Night Magazine and Man In Space, commented: "It's incredible just how much has happened in space since Yuri Gagarin's epic journey 50 years ago. Man In Space tells the whole story, from those iconic early days to long-duration stays in space stations. We bring the whole story right up to date as space is now truly opening up to commercial organisations."

Man In Space is the latest collector's edition from Sky at Night Magazine and follows Man on the Moon, which was launched in June 2009 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo landings, and Space 3D, 91Èȱ¬ Magazines' first ever 3D title, which went on sale in September 2009.

A fully digitised version of Man In Space will be released next week as an app for the iPad and android tablets, and will feature additional content and interactive elements.

NOTES TO EDITORS
Sky at Night Magazine has a monthly circulation of 21,975 (ABC Jul-Dec 2010), and is published by 91Èȱ¬ Magazines Bristol, a trading name of Bristol Magazines Ltd., which is a subsidiary of 91Èȱ¬ Worldwide Ltd., the main commercial consumer arm of the 91Èȱ¬.

Carolyn Wray