John Strickland Biography

Mr. Strickland has been an active member of space and science-related organizations since 1961, when he joined the American Rocket Society as a student member. In 1976 he joined both the National Space Institute and the L-5 Society, the “parents” of NSS. He was the founder of the Austin Space Frontier Society and has served as its chairman from 1981 to the present.

He created the Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award for the National Space Society in 1988, (shortly after the author’s death), and has managed the award from its inception. He chairs the NSS Awards Committee and the NSS Roadmap Committee. In 1988, Mr. Strickland was a founder of the NSS Chapters Assembly, and served as one of its officers. His involvement with both Austin environmental groups and CSI, ­ a national group working for better science coverage, and less pseudo-science in the mass media ­ has given him a unique perspective on such controversial issues as energy vs. environment.

Since 1976, Mr. Strickland has produced articles for The Space Review, NASAWatch, L5 News, Ad Astra, Space News, The Humanist, and other local and regional publications. His articles focus primarily on national space policy, access to space, space infrastructure and space solar power. His creation of a slide show and talk in 1990, explaining and promoting space solar power to non-technical audiences, led to the publication of his first technical SPS article in 1995, and a second in 1996.

He served as the director for science and space programming (about 50 events) at the 1997 LoneStarCon World Science Fiction Convention. He contributed a comprehensive chapter on energy systems in the book, Solar Power Satellites – A Space Energy System for Earth, edited by Dr. Peter Glaser et al., and published by Wiley-Praxis in 1998. In 2005 he also contributed the chapter “Access to Luna” to the 2005 book Return to the Moon. He since has contributed many technical papers and presentations to the annual NSS conventions, to the Mars Society’s conventions, the Wireless Power Transmission Conference of 2001, the Houston World Space Congress in 2002, and the Toronto Space Solar Power Symposium in 2009.

Mr. Strickland lived for 30 years in western New York before moving to Austin, Texas in 1976. He received a B. A. in Anthropology with a minor in Biology from SUNY at Buffalo in 1967, and a second B.A. in Computer Science from St. Edwards University in Austin in 1986. He also earned graduate credits in both Anthropology and Biology. He worked as a professional programmer and analyst from 1980, and worked as a Senior Programmer/Analyst for the State of Texas in Austin from July, 1989 until June 2009.

In April 2021, John Strickland and Sam Spencer worked with Apogee Books to publish two large books covering the human future in space. The two books, Developing Space and Settling Space, total almost 800 pages with much custom, rendered art by Anna Nesterova. For information, see https://developing-space.com/.

Selected online publications by John Strickland:

The views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of the National Space Society.

Moon

• Crew Safety During an Early Lunar Return, The Space Review, May 2019
• The struggle for a practical cislunar Transportation System, The Space Review, January 2019
• Why use lunar propellant?, The Space Review, April 2018
• The cislunar gateway with no gate, revisited, The Space Review, March 2017
• Cislunar transportation: the space trucking system, The Space Review, January 2013
• The cislunar gateway with no gate, The Space Review, October 2012

Mars

• Oxygen for Mars, The Space Review, February 2024
• Building Musk’s Path to Mars, The Space Review, February 2022
• Why a business case for Mars settlement is not required, The Space Review, March 2020
• Rethinking the Mars terraforming debate, The Space Review, August 2018
• Enabling a Mars settlement strategy with the Hercules reusable Mars lander, The Space Review, October 2016
• Solving the expendable lander and MAV trap, The Space Review, October 2015
• Why humans should go to Mars and other places in space, The Space Review, January 2015
• The incredible, expendable Mars mission, The Space Review, October 2014
• Access to Mars [PDF 2.3 MB], International Space Development Conference, May 2011

Launch Vehicles

• Revisiting SLS/Orion launch costs, The Space Review, July 2013
• The SLS: too expensive for exploration?, The Space Review, November 2011
• Current strategies towards air-breathing space launch vehicles, The Space Review, August 2011

Space Architecture

• Access to Venus, The Space Review, August 2023
• Assembly lines in space: enabling construction of rotating space settlements, The Space Review, November 2022
• Humans and robots to the Moon and Mars: a unified and integrated space program strategy, The Space Review, April 2014
• Orbital Propellant Depots: Building the Interplanetary Highway, NSS Blog, August 2011
• Space Tugs: Filling the Space Jobs Gap and Privatization Too!, Space Ref, June 2010
• The “base first” decision: crew survival and reusability, The Space Review, January 2007
• The Mega-Module Path to Space Exploration (Or: How to Use an HLV), Space.com, October 2005

Energy and Environment

• Global Warming in Perspective: Understanding Climate Change in a World of Contradictory Information, Journal of Space Communication, Winter 2010
• Space Solar vs Base Load Ground Solar and Wind Power, Journal of Space Communication, Winter 2010

Space Policy

• What is space development?, The Space Review, July 2022
• The Earth, space settlement, and the hard drive analogy, The Space Review, June 2018
• Moon and Mars are physically and fiscally feasible, The Space Review, April 2015
• It’s time for NASA to abandon the Apollo mission model, The Space Review, June 2014
• NASA and Space — The Future vs. the Past, Space Ref, February 2010
• Space fetishism: obsession or rational action?, The Space Review, January 2010
• The Space-Industrial Complex in Transition, Space Ref, August 2009
• Space Advocate Reviews the Vision for Space in 2006, Space Daily, May 2006
• The Urgency of a Real Vision for Space Exploration, Space Daily, September 2005