John Mankins

John C. Mankins
Summary Biography
John C. Mankins is an entrepreneur and internationally-recognized leader in
technology and systems innovation and management. He currently serves as co-
Chair of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Permanent Committee
on Space Solar Power and has been recognized as a leading expert in the field of
space solar power. He is Vice President of the Moon Village Association. He is
also the Founder and President of Mankins Space Technology, Inc., the President
of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions LLC, a Director of Solar Space
Technologies, Pty. Ltd., and a Professor at Kepler Space Institute. He served as
Chief Technologist for Human Exploration and Development of Space at NASA,
lead for NASA’s Lunar Outpost team in 2003, providing the key concepts that
led to the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004.
Mr. Mankins' 25-year career at NASA Headquarters and Caltech-operated NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
ranged from flight projects and space mission operations, to systems-level innovation and R&D management. He
organized and managed the Exploration Systems Research and Technology program (c. 2005) and managed NASA
SSP programs from 1995-2003 and was PI for a NIAC investigation of a novel solar power satellite (SPS) concept
that he invented: SPS-ALPHA (SPS by means of Arbitrarily Large Phased Array). From 2016-2021 he organized
annually an SSP student competition sponsored by SPACE Canada.
He is well-known as an R&D management innovator. Building on 1970s-era NASA concepts of 'technology
readiness’ for, he extended the scale in the late 1980s and wrote the detailed definitions of TRLs and promoted TRL
use by the US DoD in the 1990s, and participated in development of a TRL ISO standard. He also created the
concept of integrated Technology Readiness and Risk Assessment, including the ‘Research & Development Degree
of Difficulty’ (R&D3) and Technology Need Value (TNV).
Mankins holds undergraduate (HMC) and graduate (UCLA) degrees in Physics and an MBA in Public Policy
Analysis (The Drucker School). He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, chair of the IAA
Permanent Committee on SSP, of and the IAF Power Committee. He is a member of the National Space Society,
the AIAA and Sigma Xi.
Mr. Mankins has received numerous honors during his career, including the prestigious NASA Exceptional
Technology Achievement Medal. He has published more than 100 technical papers and two books “The First
International Assessment of Space Solar Power” (2011) and “The Case for Space Solar Power” (2014). Mankins
lives on a Ranch on the California Central Coast.

Broadcast 609 (Special Edition)

Dr. John Mankins was the guest for this special Space Show program. We began the interview by asking Dr. Mankins what would be needed to transform space to a more ordinary component of our terrestrial economy. This discussion led us to a detailed discussion regarding energy from space and space solar power. Dr. Mankins took us through ground infrastructure, the launch component, alternative launch possibilities, the space component with satellites, and the economics of power.

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