The reporting of scientific news is not a simple job. Most scientists are extremely shy of talking to newsmen, because few reporters are so well informed that they can talk on the scientists' level. When such a reporter does appear, equipped with enough scientific training to understand them, most of the experts are glad to talk.

Such a reporter is TIME'S Science Editor Jonathan Norton Leonard (TIME, April 16, 1951). Aside from reading some 50 scientific journals each month, plus following an endless flow of reports and pamphlets, Leonard is constantly packing his bag, catching a train or plane to go to the source of a particular story for interviews and firsthand observation. These trips may range from a short visit to The Bronx Zoo (to spy on the activities of a surly platypus) to a 600-m.p.h. night flight in a radar-guided F94 to tell the story of the jet interceptors guarding the Atlantic coast.

On one trip last year, Leonard packed his grip and headed, among other places, for the rocket proving grounds at White Sands, N. Mex. for talks with a very special kind of scientist. You may remember the result: a cover story on space travel (TIME. Dec. 8, 1952), with Artist Artzybasheff's striking cover painting of a lunar robot (see above). Reaction to the space story came jet-fast to Leonard: five publishers asked if he would expand the story into book length. This week the book was published: Flight into Space (307 pp.), Random House ($3.50). It is Leonard's ninth book, five of the others being also on scientific subjects. "Most of the research for this book," says he, "had already been gathered as a byproduct during the past eight years since I've been writing science for TIME." Any writer on space travel, says Leonard, must be familiar with such fields as rockets, physics, astronomy and biology--all of which he has followed as TIME'S Science editor.

For example. Leonard has made several visits to White Sands for TIME, to Wright Field, and to the Air Force's Department of Space Medicine near San Antonio, Texas. He first met Wernher von Braun. head of the former V-2 rocket project, for a TIME story in 1946 when Von Braun was brought to Fort Bliss, Texas as a civilian employee of the War Department. There was also new research which included hours spent browsing in Leonard's own extensive home library at Hastings-on-Hudson, more interviews with scientists, including members of both the American Rocket Society and British Interplanetary Society, and people who simply came to call after they heard he was writing a book on space problems.

Writing the book (an off-duty, spare-time task) put a lot of pressure on Author Leonard, who continued his full-time job as Science editor. He eased it by using a dictating machine ("One scientific device I'd never tried before"). For four months he got up at 5 a.m. for three hours of dictation four mornings a week; he also worked on the book every weekend. Midway through, Leonard left for Edwards Air Force Base, Calif, to watch the test of the Douglas X3, a new needle-nosed craft designed for supersonic flight. It was just part of his research for the cover story (TIME, April 27) on Test Pilot Bill Bridgeman. the man who had already flown faster (1,238 m.p.h.) and higher (79,494 ft.) than any other person in history. As long as he was in California, the editors in New York asked Leonard to visit Hollywood to look into the scientific background for 3-D movies. "But the book went on," says Leonard. "For two weeks I dictated in hotels, between interviews and visits to laboratories."

As the dictation was transcribed, Leonard edited it and sent the chapters off to his publisher. He never saw the book as a whole until he received the galleys. By the time half of the bits and pieces were edited and assembled, Random House liked it so well they sent it to a London publisher (Sidgwick & Jackson) who signed for British publication rights.

This week, wearing the satisfied look that comes only to those authors who have finished another book. Interplanetary Expert Leonard seemed content to travel his slow commuter train to & from his earth-bound TIME desk until the next science story sends him speeding off again.

Cordially yours,

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.