Producer shows disc respect to space race.

• Author: Bartlett, Marie
• Position: People - Spacecraft Films Inc - Brief Article

Spacecraft Films Inc. founder Mark Gray, 41, discovered success by combining a hobby and a skill. The former TV producer has tapped into a niche market of the DVD industry, and his company's fortunes have blasted off.

Spacecraft Films uses original NASA footage to produce DVD sets. Spacecraft transfers the film to digital video and, as a form of payment, provides a copy to the archive from which it got the footage. Among the company's products are DVDs detailing the Apollo missions, including the moon landing. The NASA sets are most popular with men 35 and older and got a boost when The Wall Street Journal included the discs on its list of "must-have DVDs" for the 2002 holiday season. Spacecraft had $1.5 million of sales in 2003.

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His career path began with a sixth-grade field trip to a TV station in Huntsville, Ala. His interest in space also began early, fueled by his father, an electrical engineer who worked for a NASA...