Biosphere 2

Some time in the late 1980s, when scientists started to become interested in the feasibility of groups of people surviving for prolonged periods in totally closed environments by breathing recycled air, drinking recycled water and growing their own food, an experiment called Biosphere 2 was developed. The structure with all its ancillary support services was built in the desert outside Tucson at a cost then of about $150,000,000. Plants and some fauna to mimic conditions in tropical rain forests, temperate forests, deserts and oceans were located in self contained areas of the building and in 1992 a group of 4 men and 4 women passed through the airlocks of the Biosphere, were locked in and didn't return to the outside world, Biosphere-1, until 1994 when for a number of reasons the experiment had to be stopped. Since then apart from a 6 month period when a smaller group of scientists were locked in Biosphere 2 and another period when Colombia University New York ran some experiments on global warming and carbon dioxide emission in rain forests, Biosphere 2 has survived as a tourist attraction.

We had been told by a couple of Tucson locals not to expect too much if we visited Biosphere 2 and also to be ready to be stung by the high admission charge but, well, we thought we weren't likely to be this way again so lets do it.
So after paying our admissions we joined one of the tours of Biosphere 2 and believe me, the Tucson locals weren't too wrong. However there were some memorable bits to the tour. Our guide, Bill, took us from the dry heat of Arizona through an airlock into Biosphere 2 and into a very hot and humid part of the project that overlooked the synthetic ocean below and was next to the tropical rain forest area. Bill then walked us past a small area of long grass that he said represented a savannah environment.
"Why is it called a savannah?" Bill asked us. Total silence from we tour group members. "Because it has long grass growing in it." Bill answered his own question.
We stood in blank amazement trying to deduce the logic of the question and answer. Apparently the 8 people who were locked in for 2 years were nearly always hungry because they couldn't grow enough food in their cultivation area to give them much more than one good meal a day. The obvious question then was why didn't they turn more of the different environment areas to food production or why didn't one or more of them leave earlier in the project. But I didn't have the heart to ask Bill particularly after he told us that the project had not been successful because it was 'before its time' which is probably a synonym for 'it just didn't work'.
So after being impressed by the systems put into place in the 1990s that still continue to maintain the environments inside Biosphere 2 and by Bill's technique for looking after a tour group that seemed to be repeat most things he had said at least two or three times, we escaped from the artificial world of the 1990s back into the heat of the present day Arizona desert. Interesting structures, great engineering but perhaps the Eden Project is better.



I just put this picture in because I liked the pattern of the struts inside Biosphere 2.