JACOB: Welcome So we're here
for an author's talk, as usual.
This is for "Eccentric Orbits--
The Iridium Story" written
by John Bloom to my left.
To my right, we have actually
two distinguished guests
as well with us, Dan
Colussy and Ray Leopold,
both very distinguished
in their fields.
I will let John handle
their own intros.
But we're actually
really, really
lucky to have them with us.
They are two of the
stars of this book.
Without further ado, John Bloom.
JOHN BLOOM: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, this is kind of a
one of a kind of event.
And I feel like the
second grade kid
who gets to read "My Pet
Goat" to the President.
Because we have today
in the audience,
as Jacob SAID, the two
main characters in my book.
AND these guys are
imminent beyond belief.
The first is Dr. Ray Leopold,
Air Force officer expert,
expert on maneuver warfare,
fighter plane tactics,
tactics that he developed
into tactics for the business
world, formerly a teacher at the
Air Force Academy, senior air
staff at the Pentagon,
a pure scientist
who helped me greatly during
the writing of the book,
and more the point at this
gathering, the inventor
of the Iridium Satellite System,
the most complex engineering
system ever put into space.
And Ray is the star of the
first half of the book.
So, would you stand
up, Ray, so everyone
can appreciate you being here?
[APPLAUSE]
And then we also have Dan
Colussy, the savior of Iridium
after the Motorola
Corporation threatened
to destroy the largest satellite
constellation ever created.
Dan is the star of the
second half of the book .
Now, one of the themes
running through the book
is that Dan was retired
and playing golf
in Palm Beach, Florida
when all this happened.
In fact, he was just
learning to play golf
because when he was
younger, he thought
golf was just an excuse for
businessmen to give off.
So he never learned
how to play the game.
But after many years
of running airlines,
and he ran a corporation
called UNC that many of you
might be familiar with,
he promised his wife
he wouldn't be running
any more companies.
And then he keeps
getting sucked back
in because he can't stand to
see these satellites destroyed.
So when he was 69 years
old-- so I got to know Dan.
And he helped
greatly with the book
because he never
throws anything away.
Any piece of paper that ever
crosses his desk, he keeps it.
And so his archive rivals the
Alexandrian library in size.
But it was a great
resource when you're
writing a book like this where
people have faulty memories,
or they lie about what happened,
which is more often the case.
But anyway, Dan made
a fool out of me.
Because now he's 85
years old, and he's
running three companies.
So it's not so big a deal
that he did the Iridium thing
when he was 69.
But stand up, Dan.
Thanks for being here today.
[APPLAUSE]
And we have kind of
a historic event.
Because these two men had never
met until about one hour ago.
But anyway, in 1990 at the
Hayden Planetarium in New York
City, the Motorola
Corporation, which at that time
was the most
powerful electronics
company in the world,
announced the most
expensive and complicated
engineering project in history.
And it was more complicated
than Los Alamos.
Because that project was
only doing one thing.
And Iridium was
doing many things.
And what it was is a system of
autonomous action satellites
that would function as cell
phone towers in the sky.
And for the first time,
every inch of the planet
would be accessible by phone.
So they built it.
It worked.
It was acclaimed by systems
engineers all over the world.
And so why when I met Dan
Colussy 19 years later
had I never even heard of it?
I met Dan through
a mutual friend.
And Dan was interested
in getting somebody
to help with his memoirs.
He wanted somebody to
help edit his memoirs.
And I was talking
to him about that.
And in the course of doing that,
he tells me the Iridium story.
And I said, wait, what?
Tell me that again.
I don't believe you.
They did what?
And so he told me again.
And then he just told
me the general outlines
of what happened, the
involvement of the Pentagon,
the involvement of Bill Clinton,
the Clinton Administration,
the White House, the
Secretary of Defense,
a telephone company in Saudi
Arabia that was connected
to the Bin Laden group.
And all of that was fascinating.
But the main thing he
showed me was a 3D file
of the satellites in motion.
And those satellites
were beautiful.
Now, engineers-- and I think
this is a roomful of engineers.
So you'll know what
I'm talking about.
Engineers are not a
sentimental bunch.
But I have a passage in the book
about the huge number of people
over the years who fell in
love with these low earth orbit
satellites.
And they used that language when
they were talking about them.
I loved those satellites.
Those satellites were gorgeous.
Many of them used the word "my."
They were "my satellites"
as though they were
in love with these satellites.
So anyway, I hear
this story about one
of the most amazing
engineering projects
of the last century
that became the biggest
bankruptcy in American history.
It was the year before Enron.
So that record got
shattered pretty fast.
But if you ask a
Wall Street guy what
he remembers about
Iridium, he'll
tell you, oh, a huge flame out.
Another thing where
Motorola screwed up so bad.
Motorola wanted to crash
those things in the ocean.
They probably should
have crashed those thing
into the ocean.
So I'm hearing
this bipolar story.
Yes, the greatest
engineering project ever.
Yes, biggest bankruptcy ever.
But I'm here in it years after
that the main events happened.
So I go off for awhile.
And I talk to people, people
associated with Iridium,
people associate with Motorola.
And I ask all the
obvious questions.
And there are a
remarkable number
of people who refused
to talk about it.
Now, nothing makes
a reporter more
interested in the
story than people
refusing to talk
about something.
So Bill Clinton didn't
want to talk about it.
Al Gore didn't want
to talk about it.
The Secretary of Defense
at the time, Bill Cohen,
he didn't want to talk about it.
90% the people involved at
the Motorola Corporation
didn't want to talk about it.
Ray, you were a
notable exception.
Thank you so much.
So who wanted to talk about it?
The engineers certainly
wanted to talk about it.
The scientists wanted
to talk about it.
The civil servants
wanted to talk about it.
The bureaucrats, the maligned
bureaucrats, they said,
I want to tell you about that.
And what they would
say was startling.
Because you know,
my first question
is how do you eat through
$11 billion in nine months
and bankrupt a company that's
been in the works for 12 years?
Well, maybe it was because the
phone weighed almost a pound
and was a brick long after the
age of the brick had passed.
Because Motorala,
by the way, had
invented the brick, the original
DynaTAC back in the '70s.
But the Iridium
phone, it looked kind
of like a World War
II walkie talkie
with a giant antenna on it.
And it was even
worse than a brick.
It was like a brick with a
baguette sticking out of it.
Because it had this
giant antenna on the top.
And it retailed for $3,500.
So that might be
part of the reason.
And then there was
the business plan.
Motorola was seeking
an elusive creature
called the international
business traveler.
That's who was going to
buy the phone, the guy who
needs to be connected
wherever he goes in the world.
By the time they developed the
phone, rolled out the phone,
started selling
the phone, that guy
had been blessed with
a slim phone that
worked on the GSM
system, and therefore
was capable of roaming.
Roaming was never popular.
But roaming worked.
And that phone didn't
work everywhere,
like Iridium, didn't
work in the ocean,
didn't work at the South Pole.
It wasn't global.
It just worked in the
places where the people are.
So the next question
I ask is who
came up with this idea
in the first place?
And the answer was
three engineers
in the most obscure part of
the Motorola Corporation.
In fact, they called
it Motorola Siberia.
It was the Chandler Lab
in Chandler, Arizona.
All three guys had worked
on the Star Wars program.
The official name was the
Strategic Defense Initiative.
But they tell me
there are two people
in the world who understand
the full Star Wars program.
I haven't found them yet.
But Ray knows a lot about it.
They worked with these
autonomous kinetic kill
vehicles.
Autonomous kinetic kill
vehicles, satellites.
And the three
inventors at Motorola
incorporated all that
technology into what
would become the
largest civilian space
project in history
at the time, thinking
that the future of the world
would have millions of people
using satellite phones.
Because look, what do we do now?
We build cell towers
every one to five miles.
We try to build cell towers
every one to five miles all
the way across the planet.
In fact, more than
one to five miles.
Because each
service provider has
to do its own cell tower
one to five miles all
the way across the planet.
Except you can't build them
on most parts of the planet.
So no more than about
14% of the planet
will ever be covered
with cell towers.
So in 1987-- and
actually today--
it seems like people would
say let's put them in the sky.
Doesn't that make a
whole lot more sense
than the way we're
trying to do it?
So my next question was why
didn't the rest of the world
think the same thing?
The rest of the world
did think the same thing.
There were at least a dozen
other satellite phone companies
formed in the early '90s
including one created
by Bill Gates and Craig McCaw,
Kirkland's own Craig McCaw,
called the Teledesic system.
Some of you might be
maybe familiar with it.
That would have provided
the holy grail-- broadband
in the sky.
So what happened to all those?
Well, they went bankrupt
too was the answer?
So why did Iridium survive?
Because this one guy here,
this retired businessman
who was playing golf
in Palm Beach, had
no previous experience with
satellites or outer space,
had no money of
his own to buy it,
and his single-minded
persistence
resulted in the
deal of the century
really that saved
the Iridium System.
So in order to write this book,
when people won't talk to you,
what do you do?
You go get their
e-mail is what you do.
So I filed a Freedom of
Information Act request.
And the result is
that they turned up
18,000 pages of documents
dealing with Iridium
at the William Jefferson
Clinton library in Little
Rock, Arkansas.
Then they wouldn't give
those documents to me.
They tell me they had them, but
they wouldn't give them to me.
Oh, Clinton has to
read them first.
Obama has to read them first
before they can be released.
Next month, maybe next month,
next month, next month.
This went on forever.
And then finally,
lo and behold, they
released 17,000 of the
18,000 pages of documents.
OK, that's the good news.
The bad news is now I have to
read 17,000 pages of government
documents, including hundreds
of pages of handwritten notes.
And the handwriting of
White House economists
and national security
people is not good.
I'll tell you right now.
I don't know if any of you ever
been to the Clinton Library.
But if you ever get
a chance, don't.
[LAUGHTER]
Although they do have a gift
shop there with any Bill
Clinton bobblehead doll that I
would recommend in case-- well,
unfortunately, it's not
anatomically correct.
So you can't use it to
explain the Monica Lewinsky
scandal to young children.
But at any rate, the
contemporary architect
who designed the Clinton
Library put it up on stilts
and made it long and narrow.
And so the locals
quickly noticed
that it looked like a giant
trailer house up on blocks.
Therefore, it's known in Little
Rock as Bill's double wide.
So I spent several weeks
in Bill's double wide.
And by the way, I
was almost jailed
three times for violating
various Clinton Library
regulations.
Crimping the upper left
corner of a stapled document
is a capital offense
in Little Rock
apparently because you
have to go up and have
the staple officially
removed by the person
at the front of the room, which
if you did that every time you
had a staple, you would
be there for seven years.
So there were 24 boxes
of Iridium documents.
And each box has a dozen
or so bulky folders.
And I was also found
guilty of the infraction
of having more than one
folder open at any given
time without returning
it to its proper box.
And finally, I just said stop.
Listen to me, people.
You don't have to worry about
the document being permanently
crimped.
Because only one
person is ever going
to read any of this stuff.
And you're looking at him.
And so some of the more
sympathetic librarians--
or actually, don't
call them librarians.
They're always archivists.
Archivists, they're
never librarians.
They eventually allowed
me to crimp and scan.
So I won't try to
summarize the whole story.
But Dan Colussy
comes into my story
where Motorola is threatening
to destroy the satellites.
Because the business
plan has failed.
So he has to ask
himself the question--
if he's going to
rescue the system,
the business plan failed, so who
is going to use these phones?
So he says, who needs the phone?
Who has to have that phone?
Who can't live without it?
And he finds the answer to
that is, well, CIA agents love
the phone.
People working alone
love the phone.
Drug enforcement agents love it
even more than the CIA agents
because they're working in
the jungles of Colombia.
And the drug dealers in
Colombia have the phone already.
So Marines in small units
in Bosnia love the phone.
Oil exploration companies in
remote places love the phone.
Small craft on the open
sea love the phone.
Fisherman, mining
companies, people
in the most isolated
parts of Africa,
truckers at the North
Pole, but especially guys
with secret identities
who sneak across borders
in the dead of night,
they want this phone.
So Dan Colussy says,
OK, so it's obvious.
I've got to go to
the Pentagon, right?
Goes to the Pentagon.
Obviously, you guys
need this phone, right?
Nope.
We're not interested.
The military uses
secure phones that
run from Cheyenne Mountain.
And we don't need any
phone that anybody
can buy that was invented
for playboys in Monaco.
No.
So the Navy was
especially negative.
And the Navy sort of controls
all telecommunications
for the military.
Or were they telling
him the truth?
Because when he made his
first visit to the Pentagon,
this enthusiastic,
youthful, bouncy civilian
suddenly shows up out
of nowhere and says,
I'm here to guide you through
the process, Mr. Colussy.
And his name was Mark Adams,
a man with strange credentials
from a corporation many of you
are familiar with I'm sure--
the MITRE Corporation.
It tends to have ex-CIA
heads as its president.
Colussy had at one time been
president of Pan Am Airlines
when terrorists were regularly
hijacking his planes to Cuba.
And he was somewhat familiar
with government agents.
And his spook detector went
off when this guy showed up.
And from there, the
story got stranger
and stranger and stranger.
Because the spies
wanted the phone.
But the generals
didn't want the phone.
The Marines at Camp Pendleton,
the first responders in war,
they wanted to phone
because it works on the move
and it's handheld.
And they didn't have
a phone like that.
In fact, it would later
prove indispensable
in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The scientists in charge of
operations at the South Pole
were begging for the phone.
So let me put this in context.
A satellite constellation
conservatively
estimated to be
worth $6.5 billion
is about to be destroyed by
its operator, the Motorola
Corporation, at a time
when any Fortune 500
corporation could acquire it for
what amounts to pocket change.
But there are no bidders.
And the military is not
inclined to step in.
So Dan Colussy goes
to Motorola and says,
let me come up with a
plan to get the system.
They scoff at him.
They say, surely you don't
think you can use this for data.
It's too slow for that.
He goes to all the other
co-owners of Iridium,
28 companies around the world.
They're apoplectic with rage
because they feel like Motorola
sold them this bill of goods.
And now they have this
worthless company.
So none of them want to put
up the money to get it out
of bankruptcy court.
He goes to every service
provider in the world telling
them they could own the system
for pennies on the dollar.
Actually, it wasn't even a
single penny on the dollar.
It was mils on the dollar.
But nobody knew that yet.
And nobody was willing to
take a chance on this system.
He goes to an investment
banker that he's
known for 35 years, a classmate
from Harvard Business School.
And that guy promises
to put up enough money
to buy the system
out of bankruptcy
and run it for a year.
And then he backs out at the
last minute very publicly,
tells "The New York Times"
that the company is worthless.
And in fact, it was so public
that the State Department
informed Russia that another
nuclear debris would be coming
out of the sky so that Russia
wouldn't mistake the falling
satellites for
incoming missiles.
Meanwhile, the
government-- and that's
an indication of how the
government was panicking.
A dozen different agencies
are writing memos.
They're making
plans for the moment
when 88 satellites-- there
are 66 in the constellation.
But there are a lot
of spares up there.
And there were some
that failed before they
got to their operational orbit.
So 88 satellites are going to be
jolted out of their flight path
and allowed to plunge to earth.
Especially annoyed by
this is the President,
Bill Clinton, who
says that is not
going to happen on my watch.
Only to find out
he has no authority
over the satellites because
they were launched entirely
by private industry.
And in fact, there are
foreign governments,
including China and Russia, who
are part owners of the system,
whereas the Pentagon is a
mere customer of the system.
So China and Russia have
more control over the system
than we do.
And then-- listen to
this very carefully.
The owner of the Black
Entertainment Network
asks one of his female
talk show hostesses
to set up a meeting with
the Secretary of Defense
so that some friends
of Jesse Jackson
can provide phone service
with the Iridium System
to villages in Africa.
You need me to say that again?
The owner of the Black
Entertainment Network
asked one of his
female talk show
hostesses to set up a meeting
with the Secretary of Defense
so that some friends
of Jesse Jackson
can provide phone services
to villages in Africa.
Bob Johnson is his name.
He comes to the aid of a group
of African-American investors,
all friends of
Jesse Jackson, who
have noticed the way Dan
Colussy is being treated,
and don't like it, and think
that Iridium can be used
for communications in remote
African villages, which
is an idea that resonates
deeply within the Clinton
Administration.
Because they were always
looking for ways to help Africa.
Hence, one of the oddest
business partnerships
in history is formed.
But they still do not
have quite enough money.
So they seek additional
funding from Saudi Arabia.
And the story gets
stranger still.
Anyway, all of this
is in the book.
But I went on this journey that
took me all over the country,
interviewing some of the
thousands of people who
were involved with Iridium,
including Ray Leopold,
who by the way, lives in
northwest Montana, pretty much
the hardest place to get to in
the whole continental United
States.
And then I called Ray
over and over again.
Every day I would call Ray
and say, I'm an English major.
You know?
So I would call Ray.
And Ray said
something very wist.
Ray said, you know, I was
always a science geek.
And I was always bad
in every other subject.
But everywhere I went to
school-- high school, college,
when I got my Master's, when I
got my PhD-- they would always
make me take an English course.
He says, you're
an English major.
How many times did they make
you take a science course?
Touche, right?
Never.
You know, once or twice.
But you could easily
get out of them.
And the way this story
plays out-- anyway--
it's full of twists and turns
and dirty tricks and revenge.
And it's sort of a secret
history of the four or five
people who saved Iridium.
But I wanted to wind
up these remarks
with things that were so
strange that I never even
thought about them before
encountering this book.
One short section in the book
is the history of the car radio.
Because the name Motorola comes
from motor in a car combined
with Victrola sound in a car.
And the whole culture
of that company
evolved from being the guys
who started putting electronics
in automobiles.
So I had to learn
all about that.
Nazi rocket scientists play
a big part in this story.
Because when they launched the
first intercontinental missile
from the Peenemunde
Research Center in Germany
during World War
II, the toast they
gave that day-- this was
the V2 missile that they
used to bomb London--
the toast they
gave that day was not
about winning the war.
It was about making
satellites possible.
And so they were
science geeks too.
They were just on
the wrong side.
Then of course, we brought them
on our side pretty quickly.
Secret Chinese launch
complexes-- Iridium
was the first commercial
space launch in China.
There's feedback here.
Iridium was the first commercial
space launch in China.
And when the first people went
there to use the Taiyuan Space
Center, they retired
to their bedrooms
in the officers quarters
the first night.
And they heard the
sound of clanking.
Their doors were changed shut so
the Americans couldn't get out
and spy on Base 25, this top
secret military installation.
So Dannie Stamp,
the rocket scientist
who was running Iridium had
to call his Chinese partners
and say, there will be no
imprisonment of Motorolans.
And if you don't stand down,
forget about commercial space
launches in China.
And they did stand down.
The next day, no more
imprisonment of Motorolans.
The Air Force agreement--
all Iridium satellites
have to be launched from
Vandenberg Air Force Base
because their polar orbits.
Now, China doesn't
have any problem
with launching a polar orbit
over heavily populated cities.
But if you launched a polar
orbit from Cape Canaveral,
you would go over Charleston,
Charlotte, Toronto.
Or if you launched south, you'd
go over Havana, Bogota, Quito.
So we never launch polar
from Cape Canaveral.
So all launches are from
Vandenberg Air Force Base.
And the only people
in danger are
the people in the city
of Lompoc, California.
And they have an
agreement with the city.
Six dead civilians.
That's the limit.
Seven dead civilians
is too many.
And apparently,
that's OK with Lompoc.
[LAUGHTER]
Why the Russian proton rocket
is the most reliable rocket
in the world-- when they
asked Dannie Stamp, the rocket
guy at Iridium what
rocket should we use,
he said, any rocket other
than an American rocket.
I only feel safe on Russian
and Chinese rockets.
And the reason is he'd been
in the war room in the '80s.
And he considered-- they
thought that in the event
of nuclear war, the
Russian rockets were
going to outperform
the American rockets.
I mean, they would talk about
it after hours at Cheyenne
Mountain in the bunker.
And when I was
interviewing him, I
said, Dannie, that just
doesn't sound right to me.
Because Russia was crumbling
throughout the '80s.
And he says, yeah,
they were doing badly
in every category
of civilization
except nuclear warfare.
And so he was very impressed
by the Russian proton.
And that's actually the
rocket that they relied on
for many of their launches.
I had to learn about
kinetic kill vehicles
and how they work.
I had to learn about maneuver
warfare fighter plane tactics.
I had to learn about why the
inner Van Allen Belt is toxic.
The other two
inventors, one of them
is Ken Peterson who is
a pure mathematician.
And I said, what was
your toughest thing
that you had to do on
the Iridium problem, Ken?
And he says, well, we had to
tessellate the unit sphere.
And I said, oh,
Ken, how long is it
going to take you to
explain that to me?
And he says, you know, that's
the great thing about Iridium.
He says, all I did-- it was
the greatest job I ever had.
All I did for
years was theorems.
And I said, really?
He says, yeah, I would
dream about them.
In my unconscious moments,
I would solve the theorems.
And I would say, Ken,
you're one of a kind.
One of a kind.
So anyway, that's
what you have to do
to reassign the channels when
you have satellites moving
that fast in a moving handset.
All other systems, you either
have a stationary satellite
or a stationary handset.
This one, you have extremely
fast moving satellites
and extremely fast
moving handsets,
especially when the
handset is in an airplane.
Radio astronomy.
Unfortunately, the frequency
that Iridium for its phones
is beloved of the
28 radio astronomy
outposts around the world.
And the reason is that there
is a spectral band emitted
by hydroxyl radicals created by
interstellar dust storms coming
from the direction of Orion.
And it's on that frequency.
It's on the Iridium frequency.
So the radio astronomers
were up in arms.
You can't use that frequency.
We have to listen to the
interstellar dust storms
from Orion.
And so even though
commercial uses always
are favored over the other
uses by the people that
allocate frequency, Iridium
made a picket fence solution
so that they could
share that spectrum.
And they share it to this day.
Although the astronomers
are still not happy, Ray.
I'd like you to know
they're still pissed off
because it decreased
the sensitivity
of their telescopes.
I don't know if you know that.
But they don't work as well.
Superstitions at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome where
all Russian launches occur.
When you're on your
way to the launch pad,
you have to piss on the
right rear tire of the bus.
The reason you have to do this
is that Yuri Gagarin did it.
And Yuri Gagarin survived.
First man in space, right?
In fact, when Dannie Stamp went
to the Baikonur Cosmodrome,
which is the most famous
launch complex in the world.
It's in Kazakhstan.
When he went there
for the first time,
he said, I need to
see the control room
that my men will be using.
And the Russians
kind of said, oh, you
want to see the control room?
OK.
And they went off,
and they kind of
like muttered among themselves.
And they came back, and
they said, you know what?
We'll show you
another control room
that's exactly like the
one your men will be using.
But we can't show you the
one your men will be using.
And Dannie said,
no, that's not OK.
I need to see exactly where
my men will be working.
The Russians go off.
They mutter among themselves.
They come back, and
they say, OK, we'll
show you the control room.
But on the way to
the control room,
we're going to go through
another room first.
And when we go
through that room,
we would appreciate
it if you would
stare directly
down at the ground,
walk as fast as possible, and
not move your head to the right
or to the left.
And so I said, what
did you do, Danny?
He says, I walked as
slowly as possible
and moved my head
as much as I could
to see everything in the room.
And I said, and
what did you see?
And he said, I saw a giant
map of the Soviet Union
at the bottom, an upside
down map of Canada
and the United
States at the top,
and blinking lights showing the
location of every active ICBM
in the world.
He said, for whatever
paranoid reason,
they were still on alert.
And I said, what did you do?
And he said, I said, let's
have some more vodka.
We were starting the
first global corporation.
The family had to get along.
So by the way, the
satellites, because
of the work of these two
men, that the satellites
still fly today.
There's a second generation
going up in September.
Most Americans still don't
know that the satellites exist.
If they know anything
about the Iridium phone,
they know it from the movies.
Robert Downey, Jr.
uses an Iridium phone
in all the Iron Man movies.
Clive Cussler has Dirk
Pitt use the phone
in all of his stories.
Brad Pitt fights zombies and
saves the world with an Iridium
phone In "World War Z."
Actually, he doesn't
show very much talent
in using their
phone in that movie.
Probably the most famous
scene with an Iridium phone
is Bradley Cooper in
"American Sniper."
He executes the longest
kill shot in history.
And then he's still shaking
really from finishing the shot.
And he picks up his Iridium
phone, and extends the antenna,
and says, I'm ready
to come home, baby.
So most people remember that
scene as there Iridium moment.
There were three events--
after the system was saved,
there were three events
that made the system famous.
9/11-- it was the
only phone that worked
in New York City that day.
Hurricane Katrina knocked
out the entire communications
infrastructure of
southern Louisiana.
It was the only communications
device that worked there.
Afghanistan-- in most of
the places where troops
were deployed, it was the
only phone that worked,
including many of
the military phones.
There have been
traditions now grown up
around the Iridium phone.
If you get to the summit of Mt.
Everest, the first thing you do,
you make an Iridium phone call.
Guess where I am?
If you get to the South
Pole, the first thing you do
is you make an
Iridium phone call.
Guess where I am?
Many countries and
aid organizations
have installed it as
standard safety equipment.
I have to tell one more
story about Ray though.
Ray is a Boy Scout leader
in northwest Montana.
And they go on survival hikes.
And they don't take
Iridium phones.
You don't take Iridium
phones with you
because they think it would
be an unfair advantage.
But since I know you're
all engineers, any of you
work with radio
frequency spectrum?
No?
OK, well, listen to this anyway.
Because I think engineers
can appreciate this.
There's a chapter of the
book in which Motorola
sends about 100 people
to a United Nations
meeting in Torremolinos, Spain
to get the spectrum that they
need to launch
the constellation.
Ray told me about this meeting.
And it sounded like
the most boring thing
you ever said to me, Ray.
And I was like, I was kind
of zoning out as you told me
until he told me the
part about Motorola
hiring Russian-speaking spies
to inveigle information out
of the KGB during the conference
while the French government was
bugging the hotel rooms
of the Motorola guys
and rifling through
their suitcases.
OK, now it's getting
more interesting.
You know, all that's
in the book too.
But in the course of researching
this chapter about the most
brutal politics I've ever
encountered in my life
at this thing called the
World Administrative Radio
Conference in Spain, I was
introduced to the International
Table of Frequency Allocations.
Now, I called a friend who
is a book editor when I
got to this place in the book.
And I said, I've just arrived
at the most daunting task
I've ever encountered
in my entire career.
I have this thing.
It's thousands of pages.
It's multicolored.
It's incomprehensible.
It resembles the world's
longest hippie peace quilt.
It's impossible to
make this interesting.
And he says, well, is it
that important to the story?
I said, oh yeah.
Now I know the International
Table of Frequency Allocations
pretty much determines
the future of the world.
And he goes, oh yeah, well, OK.
I guess that's important then.
Well, you'll figure that out.
So fast forward to
a few months ago.
The book is done.
The editors have
messed around with it.
The lawyers have read it.
I had to go have three
long days of meetings
just with the Saudi
Arabian lawyers.
The Saudi Arabian investor's
named Prince Khalid.
So I'm at a Christmas party.
And I see this editor.
And he's very happy
with the book.
And so I say, hey--
he's telling me
what he likes, this
and that and the other.
And I say, hey, what about
that International Table
of Frequency Allocations thing?
He says, oh, that's my
favorite chapter in the book.
OK, I can die now.
Thank you for being
an attentive audience.
And do you have any questions
for me, or for Dan Colussy,
or for Ray Leopold?
Yes.
Oh, OK.
The question is there's
a phenomenon called
iridium flare In which
there's a bright-- it
looks like a comet in the sky.
And how did that occur?
And how did you plan that, Ray?
RAY LEOPOLD: Actually
that was unplanned.
And the giant iridium
flares are a phenomenon
that has caught the imagination
of people around the world.
In fact, all you have to do
Google iridium giant flare.
And you'll see photos of these
flares from around the world.
If you look in the
book, you'll see a photo
of the Iridium satellite.
The Iridium satellite is
a three-sided satellite,
like a triangular cylinder.
And flopping out from
those three sides,
our main mission antennas that
operate in the L band frequency
range, and that's where the
satellites communicate directly
with the users on the ground.
Well, those are
planar phased rays
that have a very shiny surface.
And the attitude and
orbit control system
for the satellites
is pretty precise.
So you know the orientation
of the satellite.
You know the position of the
satellite at any point in time.
And there's a website
called heavensabove.com.
You can just go in, put in your
own latitude and longitude.
And just after sunset
or just before sunrise,
you'll be able to see
these giant flares
as they reflect the sun down
into your portion of the earth.
And I don't know who it
was at heavensabove.com
that did all the calculations.
But it's purely deterministic.
And it's not going to
last too much longer.
Because on September
17, the company
that currently owns Iridium
is replacing the constellation
with a new satellite that
is not the same physical
configuration.
And those giant flares
won't be happening anymore.
So if you've never seen them,
they're rather spectacular.
I was on top of
the mountain close
to where I live in
northwest Montana.
On the darkest night of the
year, every year in August,
all the astronomers go up there.
And I went up there
one time with them.
Boom.
What was that?
Boom.
Another one.
What was that?
And these Astronomers,
they're stupid I guess.
I said, those are
iridium giant flares.
Oh!
Then they finally saw them.
JOHN BLOOM: They're nine times
brighter than Venus I think,
which was previously the
brightest thing in the sky.
At their peak,
they're that bright.
RAY LEOPOLD: Yeah, that's right.
And actually, if you go
to the heavensabove.com,
it'll tell you how
bright it should
be for any particular
iridium giant flare.
So a cloudless sky--
JOHN BLOOM: But you don't
have to do that, Ray.
You can get an app.
There's an app
called Iridium Flare.
You just get the app.
It gets your GPS position.
It tells you where you are.
It tells you where
the next flare
is, where to point your camera.
Do it the lazy way.
You can prank people.
You can say there's going
to be a UFO event tonight.
RAY LEOPOLD: I've got to
tell you, these same Iridium
astronomers who hate us using a
20 centimeter wavelength band,
where they wanted to
listen without looking
through the picket fence,
when they go home at night,
and they're just
amateurs, they like seeing
the iridium giant flares too.
JOHN BLOOM: Any other questions?
CROWD: Yes, hello.
Hello.
So security was probably
a primary concern
when you all were working
on setting up Iridium.
Can you talk a little
bit about that,
some of the concerns you
had, some of the issues
you had to overcome, especially
with traffic like San Diego?
I'm sure it was kind of tough.
RAY LEOPOLD: OK, the
Iridium System is actually
the first commercial use of
both a packet switch network
and a circuit switch
network integrated together.
Up until that time, all
the communication systems
tied to the public
switch telecommunications
system around the world
were circuit switched.
When we created the architecture
of the Iridium System,
we made the constellation
of satellites.
And the satellites
are six planes
of satellites that went up one
side of the Earth, come down
the other with the Earth
rotating underneath it.
And those six
planes of satellites
have 11 satellites per plane.
Each satellite
communicates satellite
directly in front of it.
It's zero degrees azimuth
minus 16 degrees elevation.
The one behind it,
180 degrees azimuth
minus 16 degrees elevation.
And the ones to the left
and to the right, well
the ones to the left
and to the right,
when the satellites are
coming together at the poles
and then cross over poles
and go the other way,
you have the
direction that you're
going to the other satellite
constantly changing.
And so those inner
satellite links
actually change direction.
We have slotted phased arrays
that change the direction.
And because the
change becomes so
excessive at the
high latitudes, we
shut them off at plus 68 degrees
latitude minus 60 degrees
latitude, and then
re-acquire them
when the satellite gets over
to the 68 degrees of latitude
on the other side of the Earth.
Well, that entire
constellation of satellites,
and every subscriber
in the Iridium System
are in a packet switch system.
And then each of the
satellites has the ability
to go down to a gateway.
And the main gateway is
in the Tempe, Arizona.
And there's always at
least one satellite visible
from every point on the
surface of the Earth.
And so as the satellites go
by, they hand off the gateway
from satellite to satellite.
And when we get
down to the ground
to that switching
center on the ground,
each Iridium ground station
acts as an international switch.
It's converted to the
circuit switch system.
So Iridium was the first
realization of packet switch
to connect together
with circuit switch.
With respect to
security, it turns out
that when you have a
packet switch system
and you have the geometry
like you do with Iridium,
you get a certain
amount of security just
from the basic Iridium System.
Well, then we also
interweave the bits.
We use forward error correction.
The packets are 414
bits per packet.
The framing for the Iridium
System, for the user links,
is 90 millisecond frame.
The time slots for any burst of
energy for one of those packets
is a 8.28 milliseconds.
And a lot of 90
millisecond frame
is guard just so we don't have
any interference from satellite
to satellite.
And we do use some of the
guard time in each time slot
for the ringing system and the
paging system in the Iridium
network.
So just the geometry and the
architecture, the interweaving
forward error correction
affords us so much
communication security
that we didn't have
to put a lot in on top of it.
Nevertheless, the
Department of Defense
decided they wanted
their own gateway.
And it's in the
Hawaiian Islands.
And we put an applicate
on top of the user
units and then another
applicate in the government
gateway in Hawaii
that offers them
communication security beyond
what the Iridium System has
in and of itself.
Does that answer the question?
JOHN BLOOM: Yeah, and Iridium
was the first non-country
to get it's own country code.
What's the country
code of the Iridium?
DAN COLUSSY: It's 814 and 816.
816.
JOHN BLOOM: It's the
nation of Iridium.
DAN COLUSSY: There's
two country codes.
RAY LEOPOLD: There's
two country codes.
And then Globalstar has
one that's adjacent to it.
But the US has country
code 1, single digit.
There's a couple other
countries that have one.
Like Russia's 7.
But some other important
countries have two digits.
Well, we're kind of down
in the pecking order.
CROWD: Really fascinating talk.
So what does it take to
operate the constellation?
Is there like a
control room that's
filled with people monitoring
and adjusting things?
Is it highly automated?
What does that look like today?
And how might it be changing
with the new system?
DAN COLUSSY: Ray, that's you.
You're the expert.
RAY LEOPOLD: We
built what we call
the SNOC-- the System
Network Operation Center--
in Lansdowne, Virginia.
DAN COLUSSY: Near
Dulles Airport.
RAY LEOPOLD: Yeah,
near Dulles Airport.
And it turns that the satellites
are relatively autonomous.
And it also turns
out that when we
looked at the requirements that
came from the communications
system-- because the
satellites project
down to the earth's
surface cells
like a cellular
telephone network.
But unlike the cellular
telephone network, instead of
the user moving
through the beams,
the beams move through the
users because the satellites are
going 7,500 meters per second.
And it turns out
that when we looked
at what the actual
communications system
requirement was, it
wasn't that tight.
What we learned was we
save fuel on the satellite
by updating the position of
the satellite more frequently.
And so when you think about
it, the communications system
needed each satellite
to be in a certain area
in space that looked
like a sausage.
And as long as the satellite
was in its sausage,
the communications
system would work OK.
Well, we save fuel by making
that sausage real small.
And we do the normal
corrections in the polar regions
when we shut down cells.
Because we can have
a lot of satellites
over a pole at any one time.
And only one cell needs to be
on in that particular region.
So when we have those
userlinks turned off,
we can do some
small corrections.
And as a result, we keep a
very tight orbit control.
The attitude is
maintained primarily
with the single pitch
and momentum wheel
that we have on the satellite.
It's about a three-pound
mass momentum wheel.
And we also augment that
with the signal instruction
in the satellite links.
We've actually had momentum
wheels fail on satellites
when we continue to keep
the satellite in orbit
by doing the attitude and orbit
adjustments with knowledge
of what we get from near
satellite [INAUDIBLE].
DAN COLUSSY: That was the
number one issue when we first
took over Iridium.
I asked the CEO who was
retiring at that time
w what's the number one
problem we're going to have.
And he said, these
momentum wheels will fail.
They're mechanical devices.
And we've already
lost a few of them.
And he said, you're going
to lose a lot of these.
And it's going to
really screw things up.
So I brought Boeing in.
You guys had left by then.
And you know, [INAUDIBLE]
retro rockets.
When those things
fail, it's on wheels
to position the satellites.
And they came up with software
so that any time-- and I
think we had lost six or eight.
I'm not sure where we are today,
Ray, but quite a few of them.
And the software takes over.
And it keeps it in position
so the solar panels always
get the sun and so forth.
So that's been a lifesaver.
I mean, that would have
been a real disaster.
And I think the big thing
that Ray designed into this
was the fact that we
can change the software
in the constellation.
When they go to the North Pole,
we have several ground stations
in a location within
the Arctic Circle.
And we sent up new software.
We've done them dozens of times.
And every time we have a major
crisis, technical crisis,
we figure it out.
Our group of engineers
down in Tempe-- actually,
Chandler, Arizona.
And we can send that
new software up.
And that's very unique.
I don't think there's
a satellite system
today-- Ray, you might know
this better than I-- who
has this capability where
we can send up new software,
can take care of anomalies.
And that's worked
probably hundreds of times
in the last 15 years
where we saw a problem
and we could fix it by
sending up new software.
JACOB: I am fortunate enough
to have both hosted this event
and get the last question before
we wrap up and go to signing.
I'm actually-- as much as I
am an engineer and curious
about all the
engineering details,
I'm fascinated by the show
of will and confidence
that you, Dan, put into
resurrecting this project,
especially against all of
the odds that John has talked
about, including the purchase
price, which was, as you noted,
like half a penny on the dollar.
An incredible purchase price,
but still a lot of money--
not money you had to
follow your vision, Ray.
So what made formal this
notion that you were really
going to do this?
What forced your, sort
of, to take this action?
DAN COLUSSY: I think it
goes back to the days
that I ran Pan American World
Airways, which we flew to 120
cities all over the world.
And we had a patchwork
terrestrial system.
Every system you could think of.
And it worked most of the
time, but not all the time.
And so suddenly, I hear
about this system--
66 satellites in the sky that
are working all the time.
And it's beautiful.
And it can communicate with
airplanes, ground stations,
ships, whoever.
And somebody says, they're
going to destroy this.
Why is that?
That's the stupidest
think I've ever heard.
I mean, they spent $6
billion on it already.
And so I just got
very interested
and made them an
offer-- $25 million.
And of course the banks who
were the secured creditors
said this is chump change.
Forget it.
And I said, well,
that's all I have.
I'm sorry.
So they accepted it.
But it was really not that
moment specific so much.
But it was really my-- I have
to say it was altruistic.
Because every time
I said in public,
people looked a
little strange at me.
But it just seemed
complete insanity
that you would take this system
that's working technically
beautifully.
And because it had
a bad business plan,
they were going to destroy it.
And it just was so stupid to me.
I couldn't believe it.
So I just got in the fray
and started making offers
and ran into lots
of difficulties.
But at the end of
the day, it survived.
And we own the system
for $25 million.
They sort of ran out
of money and said,
[INAUDIBLE] with the banks.
Oh, the 25 by the
way, I can only
give you six and a half cash.
And would you take and
$18.5 million loan 10%?
So this woman who was in charge
of a consortium of 38 banks
said, you've got to be kidding.
I said no.
And [INAUDIBLE].
JOHN BLOOM: And
actually, years later,
a business columnist
for "USA Today"
was looking for a parallel
in terms of a resource that
was bought for such
a low price that
resulted to be as valuable
as it turned out to be.
The only parallel
they could find
was the Louisiana Purchase.
[LAUGHTER]
And I should say, in
terms of altruism,
there were four or five
people in the government-- not
famous people in the
government, not the top people
in the government, but a
person at the White House,
a person at the FCC, and
a person in the Pentagon
who were not well known.
I could tell you their names.
They're in the book.
But you wouldn't know
them-- who fought like crazy
to make sure these
things weren't crashed.
And even after the
whole world was
preparing for the destruction
of the constellation.
As I said, they sent
out messages to Russia
saying it's going to
happen on a certain day.
The software was written.
The suicide software
was written.
And there were these
three or four people.
And when I interviewed
Kathy Brown,
who was the Chief of Staff
at the FCC, about this,
she said, you know, when
you spend your whole life
in government service,
there's a lot of gray areas.
And there's very few things
where at the end of the day,
you can say, I'm proud to
have been part of that.
But I'm proud to be one
of the saviors of Iridium.
And that's the way--
these government people,
they didn't benefit a
single penny from it.
But they were just like,
this is outrageous.
The White House economist who
was involved was told strictly
by the White House
legal office, do not
get involved in the bankruptcy.
It's unethical.
All you can get involved
in is public safety.
And she just said, screw that.
I'm getting involved
in the bankruptcy.
And she was one
of the key people
that set up the
key meetings that
caused the system to be saved.
And a lot of these people
they were dealing with
were veteran politicians who
just see what's in the wind
and decide whether they want
to risk their career on this
or whether it's worth
fighting for or whatever.
And you had these lower
level people pushing them
saying, do the right thing.
Do the right thing.
Do the right thing.
Save it.
Save it.
Save it.
Save it.
Until finally--
DAN COLUSSY: It saved billions.
JOHN BLOOM: The higher level
people finally at the very end,
after meeting in the White House
Situation Room with 12 agencies
there, finally did
the right thing.
And throughout that
period, every day,
Motorola was saying, OK, we're
destroying it on Tuesday.
OK, we're destroying
it next week.
I think they threatened
18, 19 times to destroy it.
DAN COLUSSY: The only
other thing I would add
is that we don't have
exact figures on this,
but there are
thousands and thousands
of lives that have been
Iridium Constellation
all over the world, all
kinds of circumstances.
And there has been
so much communication
from these very remote parts of
the world that would never have
had any means to communicate.
And this is really
very gratifying to me.
Because now, starting
September of this year,
we're going to put up
the next generation.
It's another $3 or $4 billion.
But we have a cash
flow now to do.
Because now, we have 5,000 plus
people actually paying money.
And when we get to the
next generation which
will be 15 or 20 years from now,
we'll have so much cash flow,
this won't be a problem.
So now we have a system
that's in perpetuity.
And that to me is I think
the greatest satisfaction.
And Ray, I'm sure
you can elaborate.
RAY LEOPOLD: Let me say on
behalf of Bary Bertiger, Ken
Peterson, and I who created the
system and the couple thousand
people who brought
it into existence,
thank you, Dan Colussy.
JOHN BLOOM: I
should also mention
that the Malaysian airliner that
went off the grid and was never
found.
Once the new
generation of Iridium
goes up, that will
never happen again
because of a system called
Arion that uses Iridium
so that no matter what
air traffic control system
you're in, anywhere
in the world,
you're never off the grid.
DAN COLUSSY: We can track every
commercial airplane 7 by 24,
365 until it disappears off
the surface of the earth.
We'll have altitude,
speed, direction,
the whole nine yards.
So there will be no
more Malaysian Airlines.
That won't happen until 2018.
But it's coming.
JOHN BLOOM: So if it
goes into the water,
they'll know exactly where
it went into the water.
DAN COLUSSY: Well, and you'll
have all the parameters
going down, John, as well.
JOHN BLOOM: Right.
JACOB: Thanks again
to all our speakers--
Ray Leopold, Dan
Collusy, and John Bloom.
They'll be signing.
[APPLAUSE]
