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Paragon Space Development President Taber MacCallum discusses Southern Arizona's crucial role in past and future space exploration, and the region's robust high-tech employee pool |
What is the history of Paragon Space Development?
Paragon Space Development Corporation was started essentially as an off-shoot of the Biosphere 2 project, which was the largest and first artificial biosphere ever made, and the idea behind Paragon was to bring together aerospace engineering and life sciences to develop life support and thermal control systems for extreme environments. We’ve had experiments on the Mir space station and the international space station, breeding animals that are going to complete the life cycle in space, and now we are developing parts of the next generation of life support systems for future astronauts.
What is Tucson’s history in planetary science?
Tucson has had a very strong history, really ever since the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo days. The Lunar and Planetary Lab (at the UA) was established to support the Apollo missions and some of the robotic missions going to the moon and has really thrived ever since, recently supporting the Phoenix mission to Mars, which is easily considered one of the most successful planetary missions ever. Especially given the way it was operated, in a very novel way. The University of Arizona was the first university to ever run a planetary mission from a university.
Biosphere 2 came here largely because of the support that the university and its programs were able to provide in the design and development of Biosphere 2, and Paragon is here sort of as the nexus of those two, combining the biological background and life support background of Biosphere 2 with the aerospace background that companies like Raytheon and the University of Arizona have brought to southern Arizona.
What kind of pioneering research and development has Paragon accomplished?
Paragon’s essential mode of operating is to conduct research and development, develop technology, generally with sponsorship from government agencies, and then work to either incorporate those into larger programs or commercialize them. Those programs include a diving system for the navy that allows divers to work in very highly contaminated water; the system will actually allow a diver to dive in jet fuel.
We are developing life support technologies that can produce oxygen for a crew on a long duration mission directly from the carbon dioxide that they expel. We’re also working on a variety of thermal controls technologies that allow a spacecraft, when it’s very close to a planet, in a very warm environment to operate, and then when it’s in deep space, when it’s in a very, very cold environment to operate, so you need to be able to flux how these thermal control systems work. All of these began as very small programs through our labs, and then into our manufacturing facility now.
How did Paragon’s relationship with NASA get started?
Our interaction with NASA really began with the Biosphere 2 project. NASA was always very interested in the results and the progress of that project. From there we submitted proposals to NASA looking at some of the issues that were coming about as we knew we were going to have to replace the space shuttle. The programs to replace the space shuttle began in the late 90s looking at a variety of options and we began working with other primes like Lockheed and Boeing on those programs to gain an understanding of what the problems were going to be.
NASA funded us to address that problem, and then when it became time to replace the shuttle, the problem existed and we had the solution for it. So it was really a 10 year adventure coming to where we are trying to look at what the issues might be and what the solutions to those would be.
What are the strengths of Tucson’s workforce?
For a town Tucson’s size it has a very strong base of high tech employees. The University of Arizona, Raytheon, and other smaller companies working in this area have created a great pool of not only employees, but contractors that we draw on. So, one of the reasons we were able to stay in Tucson and grow is that Tucson was able to really provide the kinds of services and employee pool that we needed.
One of the exciting things about Tucson is that Tucson is also growing along with Paragon and other companies here; the downtown is developing and the resource pool is developing and so we’ve actually been able to keep pace with Tucson and grow with it, and that’s been a very exciting thing. We really look forward to seeing Tucson and Paragon grow in the future.
Why is Tucson a great location for a business like Paragon?
When we started Paragon there was certainly a transition point when we said we could go anywhere, like California or the East Coast. When we did the business plan analysis, Tucson was a great place to stay because we were able to start off with a low operating cost. It was a very open and easy place for companies to start. So there was really no reason to leave, and there were great reasons to say.
Biosphere 2 and the University of Arizona really provide a recognized center of excellence in innovative programs that when you say Tucson, people already have the association of - well you’re in one of those interesting, sort of hot spots in technology in America, and so it was really the thing to do was just stay.
Responses provided by Taber MacCallum, President, Paragon Space Development
Learn more about Paragon online at www.paragonsdc.com. |