i cannot ever stress enough how much this place blows my mind. i drive two hours and over 100 miles to see what i have always thought of as a temple of human dreams driving achievement.
i have always been a science geek, a science fiction enthusiast, a bit of a space exploration nerd and an engineering buff. i like seeing how things go from people talking about how awesome it would be, to drawing on a napkin, to finding the money and then building it. now the Biosphere 2 is a little bit of all of this, from a science fiction space colony on an alien world, to an engineering fete of mind boggling proportions, to a fertile ground of imagination what ifs.
ive always wonder as i walk the pathways if someday years down the line if generations removed from me someone is going to walk the paths of our first colony is a strange echo of a memory or maybe architectural child of the Biosphere 2. but if im honest the part of me that is in love with the movie The Thing and the Lovecraft Prophecies then runs wild and thinks of it as a survival or containment chamber of the things that shouldnt be disturbed.
at this point the public mind will remember the first mission as a failure- which it was not. the scientific data alone was a gold mine. what they did however learn, was that humans are shitty and will preen and politic over the stupidest shit. so while sealed in the group grew to have difficulties and formed cliques, and the outside groups involved in the management and financing of the experiment began to have trouble that would eventually boil over during the second mission.
the second experiment that sealed Norberto Romo, John Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascale Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey, Rodrigo Romo and Tilak Mahato was however a failure. But not entirely due to those inside. the financial and management team melted down due to many issues and forced a closure on the experiment. with their collapse Columbia University took over and the Biosphere 2 eventually passed from Columbias hands to the University of Arizona.
a few of the details i found most interesting during my multiple tours through the Biosphere include in no particular order...
many insects need ultraviolet light to survive- partially because its how they see and in some cases their body needs to absorb it just like humans need the vitamin d from the sun.
the crew quarters have their own small spiral staircases to their living lofts and have a stunning view of the area that they grew their food.
the air inside the Biosphere actually smells different from outside, and even more specialized inside from area to area.
the vegetable heavy diets that were high in nutrition and low in calories caused the scientists to lose over 10 percent of their body weight and though they were very healthy- they looked gaunt and were often fatigued.
to combat the chance of the expansion and contraction of the heated air within the Biosphere they created two giant 'lungs' that consist of humongous rooms at the end of a long and steep, very claustrophobic tunnel that leads into a chamber with a huge concrete disc suspended by a rummer diaphragm that will rise and fall with the internal pressure to regulate it so as to keep the glass walls from exploding from the pressure.
that chamber has a pool of water (to help cushion the drop of the concrete disc) that looks like a portal to hell or another dimension that Cthulu will emerge from- or at least giant tentacles that in my imagination the concrete disc is dropped onto to seal it off.
i want to live inside this Biosphere more than any other piece of real estate i have ever seen in my life but im bringing my cats and books with me if i can.
in conlusion. go, give them your money. its a small price to see science, the future of man and the dreams of life not limited to a single planet.
Great Piece!....Although I will have to disagree with your comment that the second crew was a failure.
ReplyDeleteThe second mission, while it was ended short (it was scheduled to last 10 months, lasted 6.5) because of the management takeover, it did produce significant amounts of research and improvements with respect to the first crew.
After the take over, the second crew negotiated with the new management to be allowed to try different crops in the ag area with the assurance that if the crops failed, management would supplement the crew's diet. You see, the first management was under such pressure from media and the scientific community, that they were afraid to try new crops for fear of the crops failing and then having to supplement the biospherians. The second crew was able to grow crops that the first crew had not (corn and potatoes amongst others) and increased not only their diet diversity, but produced bumper crop records.
Another major change was in the way the biosphere was operated. During the 1st crew no one went in and no one went out (with exception of Jane due to medical reasons). On the second crew, the biosphere operated a lot more like a real research station does (or a space station would). That is, with a resident crew that would take care of day to day operations of the facility, and visiting scientists who would come for different periods of time to do research. this allowed for diversity of people inside, making the atmosphere much more enjoyable, and allowed a significant amount of research to be produced. Biospherians were so tied up in day to day operations, that dedicating time to research was difficult.
Also, under Charlotte Godfrey's management, the rainforest was significantly improved. She established a drought season followed by a deluge, which resulted in much healthier plants and soil.
I still think your piece is great though.
Cheers
Rodrigo Romo, Biosphere 2, Mission 2.