Paragon Space Development: A Startup in Space Travel

11Jan2010 Filed under: Entrepreneure Stories Author: Bikash

COMPANY: Paragon Space Development
FOUNDERS: Jane Poynter, 47; Taber MacCallum, 44; Grant Anderson, 46
LOCATION: Tucson
2008 REVENUE: $8 million
EMPLOYEES: 65
START-UP YEAR: Started in 1993. Funding $75,000 in savings, student loans, and credit card debt
START-UP COSTS: A few thousand dollars for glass globes; $30,000 for computers and lab equipment; $600 a month for lab and office space
BREAKEVEN: Five years out on sales of $800,000
BIGGEST EXPENSE: About $20,000 a year for travel
QUALIFICATIONS: Poynter is a biologist, MacCallum a chemist, and Anderson an engineer.
RED TAPE: Safety requirements and other legal systems.

Now, Paragon offers premier hardware and engineering services in the fields of life support and thermal control requirements. It has supported more than 70 successful spaceflight missions (ISS, MIR, Space Shuttle, Soyuz) with the manufacture, maintenance, refurbishment, and operation of human spaceflight hardware.

Three of their major programs include:

1. Development and manufacture of thermal radiators for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, (replacement vehicle for the U.S. Space Shuttle);
2. Program thermal lead for the Constellation Space Suit System; and
3. The Paragon Dive System, (developed for the U.S. Navy, it protects divers working in contaminated waters).

Paragon Products and Technologies designs and manufacturer thermal control and life support systems. It has developed biological life support systems for NASA. Its other products include Paragon Dive System^TM, Integral Radiators, Solid Oxide Electrolysis, Variable Emissivity Radiator (VERAD), Stagnating Radiator, Metabolic (heat regenerated) Temperature Swing Adsorption and SuperCool^TM Phase Change Heat Sink.