Author-Analysts

CSG Author-Analyst Richard Mains

Space applications & benefits, microgravity R&D, innovative collaborations for space commerce

Web site: http://www.MainsGate.com

Richard C. Mains is President and Principal Scientist of Mains Associates, a Berkeley-based company specializing in strategic science communications. The company recently celebrated 25 yrs of providing professional services to clients for capturing, writing and communicating the real value produced by their researchers, programs and businesses for key stakeholders. NASA has been a major client over this period but increasingly the company has also extended its services to industry, academia and NGOs. Richard has been an author of over 50 science and technical publications and his company has received several NASA Certificates of Excellence, awards for spaceflight mission achievements and associated publications, and commendations for its products and services.

Richard’s career in support of the space enterprise has been both deep and broad. He has provided strategic planning, workshop design, research roadmaps and results and best practices reports for US/Russian Biosatellite, Space Shuttle, and International Space Station missions and the new Constellation Program. He has been a leader in commercial space facilitation and advocacy for over 20 years and provided research and technical support for NASA’s Commercial Life Sciences Working Group beginning in 1986. He is now collaborating with the Space Portal in the NASA Research Park adjacent to Ames Research Center that functions as a “friendly front-door” for commercial space interests to NASA.

Richard led Mains Associates in designing, researching, writing and publishing (NASA Special Reference Reports) pioneering space biosciences mission overviews for the period 1965 to 2003. This content and the related information design served as the basis for the development of the NASA Life Sciences Data Archive as mandated by congress. He also led design and development of a major NASA Fundamental Space Biology Program Accomplishments report for NASA Headquarters. He designed and coordinated development of a Space Life Sciences Applications web site to track NASA's knowledge and technology transfer to commercial applications. This content was used as a resource by The Space Policy Institute of GWU to conduct the first detailed economic benefits study for a government agency based on direct company interviews and demonstrated a major pay-back to society from NASA’s Life Sciences R&D funding.

Richard coordinated development of a series of web sites for the NASA Ames Research Center and Marshall Spaceflight Center focused on advanced biosensor systems, astrobiology, space station bioscience research facilities, space biology & physical sciences, space genomics and most recently the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program.

Richard also collaborated with Kathleen Connell, of the Connell/Whittaker Group in developing the virtual Center for Humanity and Space Exploration or CHASE. The portal is dedicated to optimizing the global public understanding of and interaction with space-related benefits applied to Earth. Richard is a widely-known expert in NASA space benefits analysis and reporting.

Mains Associates proposed and was competitively awarded a one year contract from the California Space Authority to develop a community-focused collaboration site for the California Innovation Corridor. The CIC was funded by the Dept of Labor as part of its Workforce Innovation for Regional Economic Development (WIRED) program.

Mains Associates developed the Commercial Space Gateway that is a pioneering facilitation and advocacy site for use by a wide range of stakeholders in the emerging “entrepreneurial space” market. It is the first of a series of “Gateways” that are in development to foster knowledge sharing, resource leveraging and innovative collaboration development for emerging sci-tech markets.

CSG Articles by Richard Mains