Michael Belfiore | Author & Speaker on Innovation

Rocketeers

How did SpaceX design, build, and fly America’s next manned spaceship for less than the cost of a single Space Shuttle Mission? How is Virgin carving out a brand-new (and very lucrative) market for suborbital space travel? How are garage rocket scientists changing the way NASA has done business for the last 50 years? What lessons can other companies seeking to change their own industries draw from the new space companies? Find out in Rocketeers.

Mad Scientists

Aside from an obscure 1974 study sponsored by DARPA itself, The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs, is the first book to tell the inside story of America’s innovation agency. How has DARPA maintained its edge for more than 50 years on a budget that is 1/2 of 1 percent of the overall defense budget? What factors contribute to its success? How can other organizations capture some of the DARPA magic for themselves? The Department of Mad Scientists provides valuable insights.

Speaking

Inspire your team with exciting commentary and up-to-the-minute reporting on technology breakthroughs in the realms of aerospace, commercial space flight, robotics, MEMS, artificial intelligence, medical technology, and much more. Along the way, you and your team will learn Michael’s 7 Secrets of Innovation, gleaned from is travels through the frontiers of innovation, and how they can be applied to your own efforts.

Rocketeers Video

Michael on TVO

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About

Michael Belfiore is an author, journalist, and speaker on the innovations shaping our world. He has written about game-changing technologies for Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, New Scientist, Smithsonian, Invention & Technology, Financial Times, and other outlets. He is a member of the nominating team for Popular Science magazine’s annual Best of What’s New issue, and he has been a finalist for the International Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award.

Michael has appeared as a commentator on the Fox Business Network, CTV’s Canada AM, NPR’s Marketplace and Morning Edition, Showtime’s Penn & Teller: BS!, and C-SPAN. He has delivered his message of change at Noblis, Medtronic, the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and other organizations.

Michael’s Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space is the first book to chronicle the birth of the commercial space age and show how innovative companies are radically changing how we reach space and creating potentially vast new markets in the process.

His book The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs is the first book to go behind the scenes at the Pentagon agency that gave us the Internet, the first satellite positioning system, and many other game-changing innovations.

Michael lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley with his wife and two daughters.

Download a high-resolution version of Michael’s photo.