- Publisher: Grove
- Year: 2016
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 558pp
- Illustrated: Yes
- Dimensions: 234x156mm
- Condition: New
- Weight: 0.9kg
- ISBN: 9781611855357
- Product code: 518428
Eccentric Orbits
The Iridium Story
John Bloom New Paperback Illustrated
Postscript summary
Iridium, the satellite telephone system that allows journalists, explorers and military units to connect anywhere on Earth, was developed by a Motorola subsidiary in the 1990s using Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ technology, but the initial corporation was bankrupted. John Bloom tells how Dan Colussy, a retired Pan-Am president, scrambled together a consortium to acquire the system and make it profitable, taking on the banks, politicians, and the military-industrial complex.
Product information
Full publisher description
In the early 1990s, Motorola, the legendary American company, made a huge gamble on a revolutionary satellite telephone system called Iridium. Light-years ahead of anything previously put into space, and built on technology developed for Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars,' Iridium's constellation of sixty-six satellites in six evenly spaced orbital planes meant that at least one satellite was always overhead.
Iridium was a mind-boggling technical accomplishment, surely the future of communication. The only problem was that Iridium was also a commercial disaster. Only months after launching service, it was $11 billion in debt, burning through $100 million a month and bringing in almost no revenue. Bankruptcy was inevitable - the largest to that point in American history. It looked like Iridium would go down as just a 'science experiment.'
That is, until Dan Colussy got a wild idea. Colussy, a former CEO of Pan Am, heard about Motorola's plans to 'de-orbit' the system and decided he would buy Iridium and somehow turn around one of the biggest blunders in the history of business.
Eccentric Orbits masterfully traces the birth of Iridium and Colussy's tireless efforts to stop it from being destroyed, from meetings with his motley investor group, to the Clinton White House, to the Pentagon, to the hunt for customers in special ops, shipping, aviation, mining, search and rescue. Impeccably researched and wonderfully told, Eccentric Orbits is a rollicking, unforgettable tale of technological achievement, business failure, the military-industrial complex and one of the greatest deals of all time.
Iridium was a mind-boggling technical accomplishment, surely the future of communication. The only problem was that Iridium was also a commercial disaster. Only months after launching service, it was $11 billion in debt, burning through $100 million a month and bringing in almost no revenue. Bankruptcy was inevitable - the largest to that point in American history. It looked like Iridium would go down as just a 'science experiment.'
That is, until Dan Colussy got a wild idea. Colussy, a former CEO of Pan Am, heard about Motorola's plans to 'de-orbit' the system and decided he would buy Iridium and somehow turn around one of the biggest blunders in the history of business.
Eccentric Orbits masterfully traces the birth of Iridium and Colussy's tireless efforts to stop it from being destroyed, from meetings with his motley investor group, to the Clinton White House, to the Pentagon, to the hunt for customers in special ops, shipping, aviation, mining, search and rescue. Impeccably researched and wonderfully told, Eccentric Orbits is a rollicking, unforgettable tale of technological achievement, business failure, the military-industrial complex and one of the greatest deals of all time.
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Eccentric Orbits
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Iridium, the satellite telephone system that allows journalists, explorers and military units to connect anywhere on Earth, was developed by a Motorola subsidiary in the 1990s using Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ technology, but the initial corporation was bankrupted. John Bloom tells how Dan Colussy, a retired Pan-Am president, scrambled together a consortium to acquire the system and make it profitable, taking on the banks, politicians, and the military-industrial complex.
Paperback
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0
add-to-cart
rrp_info:£16.99
productId:66793
bic_code:KNT
KNT
£16.99
John Bloom
General
234x156mm
Grove
Yes
Paperback
