Timing really isn't everything. Sometimes a lot of hard work, perseverance, the right people and the right product can overcome even the worst timing. On July 20, 1989, just two months before SpaceNews published its first monthly prototype, U.S. President George H.W. Bush stood on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and unveiled his outline for the Space Exploration Initiative: continuation of what by then was called Space Station Freedom, returning humans to the Moon and eventually sending them on to Mars. Plans for the newspaper already were underway, but Bush's announcement only added to the excitement that this might be a great time to start a trade publication focused entirely on space. Bush had only been in office a short time, but seemed destined at that moment to carry out many of his predecessor's policies, particularly a strong national defense and support for technology programs like the space station and the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP). At the time, I was a political reporter for the Journal Newspapers, a chain of dailies serving the Washington suburbs that also happened to be owned by the Times Journal Co., the same corporation that was starting SpaceNews. Having grown up in Huntsville, Alabama, at the beginning of the Space Age, I loved everything about space, so jumping to SpaceNews seemed a natural fit.
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