Building the Earth–Moon economy, one division at a time.

John Middleton

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Jack Middleton founded Middleton Space around a simple conviction: the limitations of spaceflight were engineering problems, not permanent boundaries.

Middleton began with low-Earth-orbit manufacturing before moving into asteroid mining and, eventually, exploration of the outer Solar System. Over two decades, his willingness to combine ambitious engineering, private capital and calculated risk transformed Middleton Space into one of the world's most capable private aerospace companies.

Under his leadership, the company pioneered advances in sustained propulsion, autonomous spacecraft operations, orbital construction and deep-space reliability. Among those developments was the ion-fusion propulsion technology that became the foundation of Middleton Space's first interstellar exploration program.

Middleton's approach has remained remarkably consistent as the company has grown: identify the obstacle, determine whether physics actually prohibits it, and, if it doesn't, build the engineering organization capable of overcoming it.

That philosophy ultimately carried Middleton Space beyond Earth orbit, beyond the outer planets, and toward its most ambitious undertaking: establishing a permanent human presence around another star.

Linda McCary

Chief Operating Officer

Linda McCary has spent her career turning ambitious missions into operational ones.

Before joining Middleton Space, McCary served in the United States Space Force and earned astronaut wings before moving to SpaceX. An experienced astronaut herself, she joined Middleton Space early in the company's history and rose to become the second-ranking executive in the organization

As COO, McCary has final operational authority over many of the company's most demanding missions. Her responsibilities have included crew selection, mission readiness, launch operations, supply-chain coordination, and the extraordinary logistical demands of Middleton Space's interstellar program. The company's crew-selection process, for example, places recruitment and evaluation under Crew Operations while reserving final selection authority to McCary.

Known inside Middleton Space for direct decisions and an intolerance for unnecessary complexity, McCary has been Jack Middleton's principal operating partner through the company's most consequential programs.

Atticus "Mac" MacDonald

Executive Vice President, Production and Launch Infrastructure

MacDonald began his career as an aerospace manufacturing engineer, eventually moving into large-scale production management and launch operations. Before joining Middleton Space, he spent nearly two decades overseeing increasingly complex aerospace manufacturing programs, developing a reputation for solving the less glamorous problems that determine whether ambitious engineering projects actually fly: production capacity, tooling, suppliers, facilities, schedules and people.

He joined Middleton Space during the company's early expansion beyond low-Earth orbit and was instrumental in building the production organization required to support permanent operations on the Moon, Mars and throughout the outer Solar System.

As Executive Vice President of Production & Launch Infrastructure, McAllister has responsibility for Middleton Space's manufacturing and launch facilities on Earth as well as its orbital construction infrastructure at LEO and L4. His organization manages the company's terrestrial production plants, launch complexes, orbital shipyards, spacecraft assembly operations and the logistics network connecting them.

Every major Middleton Space production and launch schedule ultimately falls within his organization—from individual cargo flights to the construction and departure of the Promise-class interstellar ships. Working with engineering and mission operations, McAllister determines what can be built, where it will be built, when it will be ready and how it gets into space.

Dr. Manhohan Sharma

Executive Vice President, Research and Development

Manhohan Sharma leads Middleton Space’s advanced research organization and the development of technologies intended to define the company’s next generation of spacecraft, propulsion and communications systems.

Trained as a physicist and electrical engineer, Sharma began his career in advanced propulsion research before expanding into computational physics and quantum systems. He joined Middleton Space during the company’s transition from conventional interplanetary operations to deep-space exploration, initially leading a small advanced-concepts group charged with turning promising laboratory technologies into systems capable of operating aboard spacecraft.

Today, as Executive Vice President of Research & Development, Sharma oversees multidisciplinary teams working across three of Middleton Space’s most consequential technology areas: advanced engine development, quantum computing and quantum communications. His organization conducts the fundamental research behind new propulsion concepts while working closely with engineering teams to move successful technologies from experimental hardware into production.

Sharma also directs Middleton Space’s quantum computing program, whose systems support complex modeling, navigation, materials research and mission analysis. His quantum communications teams developed technologies that eventually made instantaneous communications across interplanetary—and ultimately interstellar—distances possible, fundamentally changing how Middleton Space operates beyond Earth.

His organization works several generations ahead of the company’s production programs. Technologies may spend years in Sharma’s laboratories before appearing aboard an operational spacecraft, while others never leave the experimental stage. Sharma considers both outcomes part of the job.

Dr. Sora Lee

Senior Vice President, Engine Design and Performance

Sora Lee is one of Middleton Space's leading propulsion engineers and the principal engineer behind some of the company's most advanced Ulysses drive systems.

Lee holds three doctorates—in aerospace engineering, applied physics and propulsion systems—and rose to become Middleton Space's engine design chief while still unusually young for a position of that responsibility. Her work encompasses advanced propulsion architecture, drive efficiency, engine production and the practical problems of operating propulsion systems across interplanetary and interstellar distances.

Her engineering responsibilities have also taken her into space. Lee personally accompanied critical propulsion and navigation hardware to Promise Series of Colony Ships.

Rebecca Logan

Vice President, Human Systems Engineering

Rebecca Logan leads Middleton Space's work on one of the hardest problems in human spaceflight: keeping the human body alive and healthy when the journey lasts longer than a human lifetime.

A biomedical engineer rather than a physician or astronaut, Logan built his career around long-duration human physiology. Middleton recruited her from NASA nearly a decade before the first Promise mission, and Logan became responsible for crew survival systems, Transit Pods, Trirenogen applications and the biological requirements of long-duration spaceflight.

Logan was one of the principal architects of Middleton Space's TPod program. The combination of controlled metabolic suspension, autonomous medical monitoring and long-duration life-support management ultimately made interstellar colonization practical rather than merely theoretical.

As Vice President of Human Systems Engineering, Logan oversees the intersection between medicine, biology and spacecraft engineering—ensuring that Middleton Space designs its vehicles not simply to reach distant destinations, but to deliver healthy people when they arrive.

Jerry Combs

Vice President, Crew Operations

As Vice President of Crew Operations, Combs oversees the recruitment, selection, training, certification and continuing flight readiness of Middleton Space crew members. His organization manages personnel from their initial evaluation through mission assignment and maintains the training and qualification standards required to keep them flight-ready throughout their careers.

Combs brings considerable flight experience to the position. A veteran of deep-space operations, he was the eighth human being to set foot on Europa, an accomplishment still reflected in the Europa/8 patch he wears on his flight suit. He is certified to pilot every class of Middleton Space spacecraft and serves on the company's flight certification committee, helping establish the standards by which new spacecraft and their crews are cleared for operational service.

Before becoming Vice President, Combs spent eight years determining who was—and was not—qualified to fly for Middleton Space. His recommendations earned a reputation for being difficult to challenge, built on an understanding that technical competence alone does not make someone suitable for spaceflight.

That experience made Combs a central member of the selection team for the Promise Series Colony Ship Program. He helped develop the unusual selection criteria for both colonists and Sentinels and participated in evaluating the candidates entrusted with humanity's first interstellar missions.

For Combs, crew operations does not end when someone earns a flight assignment. His organization remains responsible for recurrent training, medical and proficiency requirements, spacecraft-specific qualifications and maintaining the operational readiness of Middleton Space flight crews wherever they are assigned.

David Brown

Vice President, Colony Ships Production

David Brown is responsible for the design, engineering and production of Middleton Space's Promise Series colony ships, the vessels developed to carry permanent human settlements beyond the Solar System.

Brown holds advanced degrees in Space Construction Engineering and Structural Propulsion Systems, disciplines that reflect the unusual demands of building spacecraft whose operational lives are measured in decades rather than months. His work combines large-scale spacecraft architecture with propulsion integration, orbital construction and the practical requirements of supporting human beings across interstellar distances.

As Vice President of Colony Ship Design, Brown's influence extends across virtually every aspect of the Promise Series. His organization is responsible not only for the ships' primary structures and propulsion integration, but also crew habitation, life-support architecture, TPod facilities, cargo systems, docking interfaces and the structural requirements necessary to assemble and service vessels in space.

Brown led the design and production efforts for the Promise Series as the ships evolved from the original Genesis Promise architecture into increasingly capable designs. Each generation incorporated lessons from the ships that preceded it while accommodating larger crews, greater cargo capacity and increasingly sophisticated propulsion and onboard systems.

He is also regarded as a leading authority on cislunar space and orbital infrastructure, with particular expertise in the transportation, construction and logistics networks connecting Earth, the Moon and the Lagrange regions. That expertise has increasingly extended to Mars as Middleton Space's operations have grown into a transportation and construction network spanning both planets.