Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys Into Satellite Heaven [Hardcover]

Gary Dorsey (Author)

Book Description

Series: Sloan Technology Series | Publication Date: April 1, 1999

For more than a decade some of the world’s most powerful defense companies have raced to launch the first constellation of low-earth orbit commercial satellites. The prize? An explosive global market for personal communications worth billions of dollars. Fresh out of Harvard Business School, twenty-something 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. 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. The story of their obsessive gamble in the high-stress game of space commerce is told through the lives of Thompson’s managers, markets, and “freshouts”—a brilliant team of young engineers from the country’s best universities. Like The Soul of a New Machine, Silicon Sky—part of the celebrated Sloan Technology Series—reads like fast-paced fiction, tracing the advent not just of a single company, but of a quickly emerging technological industry.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Scientific American

The small start-up of the title, now a darling of investors, is Orbital Satellite Corporation. At a time when the U.S. government's space programs had slid into a pattern of what aerospace historian Alex Roland called gargantuan missions, overwrought technology and excessive budgets, David Thompson--the driving spirit and CEO of Orbital--saw an opportunity for commercial success in space. His idea was to put up a constellation of small satellites in orbit a few hundred miles above the earth to provide such consumer services as telecommunications, position finding and vehicle navigation. The company succeeded by developing small satellites and rockets to launch them. By 1998 Orbital had become one of the 10 largest satellite-related firms in North America, with earnings estimated at $750 million. Dorsey, a journalist, spent the period from 1992 to 1995 closely observing the company's activities. His breezy account of the adventure is an entry in the Sloan Technology Series.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738200948
• ISBN-13: 978-0738200941
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,491,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disjointed, poorly written, and disappointing., August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys Into Satellite Heaven (Hardcover)

I agree completely with the reader from Monument, CO. This book was very disjointed and poorly written. The only favorable reviews I see on this page are from people involved in the satellite business. One five star rating comes from a guy who has not read the book! This book pales in comparison to one of my favorites, "The Soul of a New Machine", by Tracy Kidder. The characters in Silicon Sky are sketchy and at times superficial. For example, all we really learn about Grace is that she sings pop songs while walking and loves to get in the face of the contract manufacturers - even though she was apparently an engineer of some importance. Dorsey also does a rather poor job at documenting how various technical obstacles are overcome. How exactly was the "last great obstacle", the problem with the satellite's batteries overcome? We'll never know. The last thing Dorsey talks about is some experiments with some mysterious shielding material. Did the material work? Or did the engineers have to come up with something else? Instead we are treated to coverage of engineers howling when they found out their board does not work because the MCU is placed wrong. I've designed boards for embedded systems for years. The only time I've had an error of this nature I found I had mislabled the board's silkscreen. Takes a tech about three minutes to fix with a hot-air rework station. Sorry, I really wanted to like this book. But it appears that Dorsey does not have enough technical expertise to determine the relative importance of projects and engineers to really make this an informative and entertaining book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Nerd Chic ..., October 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys Into Satellite Heaven (Hardcover)

One of the most inspiring business books of the past year tells how a little company full of big ideas, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., got into the business of putting commercial satellites into space. In Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys into Satellite Heaven, author Gary Dorsey chronicles the progress of a pipe dream as it has evolved into a company with 1998 revenues of $734 million. Orbital founder David Thompson gave Dorsey unfettered access to the company's inner workings -- from the beginning of its efforts to design a commercially viable communications satellite in 1992 through the first launch in 1995. The author clearly identifies with Thompson's entrepreneurial ardor, contrasting Orbital's culture of discovery with the 'feudal,' unimaginative culture of old-line aerospace companies addicted to government contracts. What Dorsey lacks in objectivity, he makes up for in clarity. From his fly-on-the-wall perch, sitting in on company meetings and peering over the shoulders of workers in the lab, he has observed and distilled into concise prose the details that made Orbital's success possible. Dorsey explains the technology behind the business so fluidly that it hardly seems like rocket science. BOOKPAGE, June 1990 REVIEW BY E. THOMAS WOOD

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captured Well, January 29, 2000

By 

former osc insider (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys Into Satellite Heaven (Hardcover)

As someone who worked at the 'old' OSC during the time that this book covers, I knew a lot of the characters portrayed here and am acquainted with the Orbcomm story. It's not only accurate but it also tells a lot more about the engineering team and the management of the project than most people in the company knew at the time. Some people fault the book for only covering the time period to the '95 launch, but for the three critical years of the start-up's story, he captures every significant facet. I'm sure some engineers might not be happy with how they're portrayed, but this is not a technical book. As a story about entrepreneurial guts and the essence of engineering it's one of the best. The recent award from IEEE was highly deserved.