Reaching Escape Velocity

This book is for those who are attempting to launch a massive engineering project or expedition with minimal financial or human resources. It is not about specific hardware or software technical methods; it is about the meta-hack of developing enough support and buzz to get your project to take on a life of its own. Large corporations do this with brute-force methods (unlimited money and people), but individuals face daunting hurdles when competing for mindshare and resources. Without the ability to leverage larger forces as a sort of "martial art," it is exceedingly difficult for a lone geek to escape the gravity well. This little book is the collection of "trade secrets" that have made my 25 years of adventures possible... the art of working with sponsors, media, and volunteers to get an insanely ambitious project off the ground and keep it moving on its own momentum.
About the Author: My own career has been the proving ground for the techniques revealed in this book. In 1983 I took off across the US on a computerized recumbent bicycle, freelance-writing and consulting while underway. This was bizarre at the time, though of course it would now be unremarkable. But the project took on a life of its own, and I eventually covered 17,000 miles on three versions of this increasingly geeky machine. With a handlebar chord keyboard, heads-up display, head mouse, console Macintosh, and 24/7 satellite net connection (in 1990) it was a sort of geek extravaganza... and the project had about 150 corporate sponsors, 45 volunteers, and almost continuous mainstream media coverage. It became self-supporting, then segued through the '90s into the Microship project - an amphibian pedal/solar/sail canoe-scale micro-trimaran with similar technological overlays. As this book goes to press, I am making the transition to a full-time voyaging life aboard a 44-foot steel pilothouse sailboat. Naturally, this is extensively networked with embedded data collection and control systems, streaming telemetry to a public web server, and a user-interface layer somewhat reminiscent of the Enterprise. I have published 6 books over the years (ranging from travel and adventure to microprocessor design), and prior to all this nomadness spent a decade developing custom industrial control systems, early home computers, and other paleo-geekery. Home base is in the Pacific Northwest, and you can see my projects and bloggage at http: //microship.com