John Mankins

Recognized under Tier 5 — Energy Systems & Power Generation, John Mankins has built a long career in space solar power research and advocacy. Mankins's development of the SPS-ALPHA (Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large PHased Array) concept — a modular, incrementally deployable space solar power architecture — and extensive research into the technical and economic feasibility of space-based solar power has kept this transformative energy concept alive at a time when enabling technologies have finally begun to mature rapidly. Space solar power, if realized, could provide essentially unlimited clean energy not only to Earth but to surface installations on Mars and other planetary bodies.