Taber MacCallum
Taber’s reputation for tirelessly pursuing knowledge and excellence precedes him. Early in his career he was referred to as a wünderkind, a genius, the prodigal result of his environment and upbringing. His life’s journey has informed and enriched his every step, and today that path has led him to co-founding Space Perspective with his business partner and wife Jane Poynter.
Taber was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to an Australian psychiatrist mother and an American astrophysicist father. Prophetically, his father’s career was focused on the study of gamma rays using spaceballoons. In this stimulating environment Taber excelled, moving to Austin, Texas to finish high school. Like many before him, he then decided to travel and a love affair with all that the world had to offer ensued. Starting in the relatively safe realms of Western Europe, he decided to push the boundaries and visit the Soviet Union, traveling on the famed Trans-Siberian Railroad. He found great warmth and comradery from long conversations with the locals, quickly realizing that there was much more that binds us than separates us as humans. Emboldened by this experience, Taber moved to Japan to teach English and then on to China, which had only recently been opened to the West. Again, Taber was taken by the commonality within the human experience. It was in Samoa that Taber joined a research vessel that was sailing around the world filming breathtaking documentaries. In Singapore Taber learned to dive, the science of which he soon mastered. While docked in Sri Lanka the vessel picked up Jane and the two of them became part of the potential crew pool for the then recently conceived project Biosphere 2. From the outset, he was part of the design team, integral to imagining and realizing the Biosphere 2 project. He created the analytical laboratory that monitored the air, water, and soil of Biosphere 2. Many of the insights learned in Biosphere 2 would become the basis for future projects and innovations.
After sailing oceans together, developing and serving as crew members in Biosphere 2, and starting the successful aerospace company Paragon Space Development Corporation, Jane and Taber got married, and are now nearing their 30th anniversary. Named in honor of Taber’s Great-Grandfather’s company that built Paragon Propellors in WWII, Paragon is focused on building on their learnings from Biosphere 2. 20 years on, and Paragon has thrived, headquartered today in Tucson, AZ pioneering life support systems and thermal control products for extreme environments. These systems are used on the International Space Station, by NASA, major aerospace companies and the U.S. military.
By 2010 Taber was driven to start developing new space vehicle options which grant greater and cleaner access to space. Using his experience with his father’s spaceballoons, Taber started considering options that were in stark contrast to the rocket fuel options that dominated the market. In 2014, these innovative ideas were put to practical use as Google executive Alan Eustace choose Paragon to realize his dream of breaking the world free fall record in what was the StratEx project. This was all captured in the documentary 14 Minutes from Earth, released in 2016.
Taber is the former Chairman and current board member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Their mission is to advance commercial spaceflight and the associated industry, to pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. Taber holds an impressive number of technology patents, most notably; the atmospheric monitoring system used in the Biosphere, the Boeing CST-100 spacecraft humidity control system, the thermal radiators for Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, a hazardous water diving suit for the US Navy, the StratEx stable supersonic flight spacesuit, a wastewater recovery system now on the International Space Station, several breakthrough stratospheric altitude control navigation technologies designed for the stratollite, and a number of key Space Perspective technology patents for human balloon flight in the stratosphere.
As the Chief Technology Officer of Space Perspective, Taber heads up a team of world class engineers. His experience, knowledge and passion conjure confidence and inspire the whole company.