Product Description

A classic American tale of ingenuity and hard work, guts and glory

For more than a decade some of the world's most powerful defense companies have raced to launch the first low-earth-orbit commercial satellites. The prize? An explosive global market for personal communications worth billions of dollars. Fresh out of Harvard Business School, David Thompson entered the fray with an insane idea: to build his own rockets, satellites, and a multi-million-dollar corporation that could go head to head against the big guys. The story of his electrifying grab for the heavens-huge start-up costs, mind-blowing technical obstacles, and dark tangos with investors-is told by acclaimed writer Gary Dorsey, who was there reporting from inside. Silicon Sky reads like fast-paced fiction, and traces the advent not just of a single company but of a quickly emerging technological industry.

Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys won the 1999 award for Distinguished Literary Contribution" from IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2050326 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-25
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.43 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Amazon.com
Gary Dorsey's Silicon Sky tells the engrossing tale of a private company's quest to develop the world's first low-earth-orbit commercial satellite--a momentous accomplishment that paved the way for everything from reasonably priced GPS navigational receivers to pay-at-the-pump credit-card terminals at filling stations. Dorsey tackles the true story of the emerging world of "microspace" in a manner reminiscent of Tracy Kidder's pioneering The Soul of a New Machine, using an interesting combination of first-hand observations, critical analysis, and literary techniques usually found in novels. By sticking close to Orbital Sciences Corporation's extensive cast of characters working in the early design stages in 1992 through the product launch in 1995, Dorsey brings readers into the labs and boardrooms as the fledgling operation grows into a booming company that entered 1998 with $3.9 billion in orders already in its books. --Howard Rothman

Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
"Gary Dorsey captures the excitement, the challenge, and the heady adventure of entreprenerial spacefaring in this eyewitness page-burner of young recruits building satellites on a shoestring to weave a communications net around the world. The best inside look at a high-tech business venture since Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine."

Electronic Business Magazine, March 1999
This is a story about David and Goliath set in the commercial aerospace business. It's about tenacity, unrealistic goals and wild expectations. And ultimately, it's about how a small company, Orbital Sciences, overcame the odds to achieve commercial success. The book tells a fast-paced story ... reads more like a Tom Clancy novel than a business book. Dorsey's ability to tell a good story brings the cast of characters to life. Central in the story is Orbital's visionary CEO David Thompson, a wunderkind who challenged the status quo with a new way of thinking about how to commercialize space. This is an inspirational read.