Great references. Dr. Manuel was dept chair and on my committee when I went to UMR. He was quite a character.
He has an energetic vibe I think, but of course, there were some allegations about his private life.
Unfortunately, he was virtually laughed off of Phys.org by commenters who thought he was wacky. They didn’t believe NASA would have worked with him on anything.
He has (or had) a web site with his research on it that was interesting.