Creating devices for the high-stress rigors of space travel pushes designers to their limits, and the results often far exceed the original concepts. The technologies developed for the extreme environment of space are often applicable here on Earth. Some of these NASA technologies, for example, have been applied to the breathing apparatuses worn by firefighters, the fire-resistant suits worn by racecar crews, and, most recently, the deep-sea gear worn by U.S. Navy divers.
Transcript
00:00:01 on Earth we often take for granted the Basic Essentials for Life water food even the air we breathe because they're all around us but what about living in space we'll have those same needs where will we find them a small firm called Paragon space Development Corporation in Tucson Arizona is working with NASA on critical Tech Technologies to support human life
00:00:32 in space and two of the owners Tab mallum and Jame pointer know a lot about living in an enclosed space in the early 1990s their Biosphere 2 experiment played the groundwork for the critical roles Paragon has in today's NASA missions one of the firm's Partnerships with NASA is through the small business Innovation research or sbir program
00:01:01 through SB contracts with Johnson Space Center Paragon has been developing a number of different Technologies for thermal control and life support systems in extreme environments by working with engineers at Johnson The Firm built and tested a unique structural radiator prototype through an sbir phase 3 contract Paragon is now partnered with Lockheed Martin to transfer the radiator
00:01:27 technology to Orion NASA's new new crew exploration vehicle we're taking the spacecraft to the moon and Mars so having the radiators also serve the purpose of structure thus reducing the weight of the vehicle was very key to making the whole vehicle successful in 1999 lockit had included Paragon and other small companies on their team to develop human spacecraft for NASA and
00:01:53 today Paragon is also a member of both winning commercial orbital transportation services or cots team we worked with them so we understand how the spacecraft changes as we change life support Technologies and they understand how with the spacecraft Mission changing how that's going to change the life support system we called it the rubber spacecraft model we could change
00:02:18 missions and change configurations and understand how all these subsystems played together rather than being analyzed in isolation the firm is also developing an air revitalization system for use in space through another sbir contract the system takes the Cru carbon dioxide and then produces all of their oxygen some of paragon's Technology development is cross- fertilized between
00:02:44 NASA and other Federal departments for the Navy they're creating a new diving suit system that would allow divers to enter harsh chemical environments we can take that expertise and transfer that to the commercial market and that benefits NASA as well because we're working with both of the cot's teams and the ability for us to make them more successful allows NASA to be more successful in
00:03:08 working with the cot's teams the Navy's dive suit system technology plays right into NASA's constellation program need for an improved space suit we're partnering with other companies to develop these new uh space suits and we're involved in designing the life support system aspect of the suit to support NASA and Commercial Hardware project s Paragon recently opened its
00:03:32 new human rating facility for testing environmental control and life support systems we're now moving into manufacturing space light hardware and in order to really do that we needed the facility the space for that Enterprise the chamber that we have developed is very specifically designed for testing space flight hardware and space suits in a space-like environments many years ago
00:03:59 paragon experiments were the first to complete animal life cycles in space from birth to procreation over multiple generations and now as the firm moves forward with NASA they plan to support human life in space
