Biosphere 2

IDENTIFICATION: An environmental research facility in Arizona originally constructed as a self-sustaining, closed ecological system

Two Biosphere 2 missions during the 1990s explored the viability of maintaining and inhabiting a closed, human-made ecological system for prolonged periods. In the period since such colonization experiments ended, the facility has been a useful site for university-run environmental research.

Located on a 16-hectare (40-acre) campus near Oracle, Arizona, Biosphere 2 is a 1.27-hectare (3.14-acre) glass-and-steel structure that resembles a series of connected greenhouses. A basement “technosphere” of electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems maintains Biosphere 2’s temperature, humidity, and airborne particulate levels. Space Biospheres and Ventures, a private, for-profit firm founded by Biosphere 2 inventor John Allen and bankrolled by philanthropist Edward Bass, began constructing the facility in 1986 as a prototype for a self-sustaining space colony. Biosphere 2 was designed to mimic the earth—Biosphere 1—by being closed to exchanges of material or organisms from the outside but open to energy and information exchanges.

On September 26, 1991, Biosphere 2 was sealed with a team of four men and four women inside; the mission ended exactly two years later. A second, seven-person mission was conducted between March 6 and September 6, 1994. One month into the second mission, Bass dissolved his business partnership with Allen, citing project mismanagement. Federal marshals served a restraining order that ousted on-site management, and Bass’s Decisions Investments Corporation took over the property.

Biosphere 2 was intended as a century-long experiment to determine whether it is possible to maintain a self-sustaining human colony in a hostile environment. Crew members had to grow their own food, recycle the water they drank, and produce the oxygen they breathed. They were responsible for the health of the plant and animal species inside the sealed structure, and they had to maintain the complex apparatus that kept Biosphere 2 functioning.

The biomes of earth were represented within Biosphere 2 by a tropical rain forest, a desert, a savanna grassland, mangrove wetlands, and an ocean with a coral reef, plus an area of intensive agriculture. It proved to be impossible to keep the biomes separate: The desert, for example, was too wet. Also, the structure shut out 40 percent of the sun’s light, and the ceiling was sometimes so hot that the treetops burned. Nineteen out of twenty-five vertebrate species inside the structure died, while others (such as ants and cockroaches) swarmed out of control.

Among the difficulties encountered during the first two-year experiment was a lack of oxygen: The integrity of the sealed environment had to be broken when it became apparent that the organically rich soil had consumed more oxygen than predicted. The biospherians produced about 80 percent of the food they needed but suffered crop failures because of unanticipated depredation by mites and other insects. One crew member had to be taken out of Biosphere 2 for emergency surgery on a wounded finger. Upon her return, she brought some supplies with her. Such incidents drew criticism that the giant terrarium was not as self-sufficient as intended, but the project directors maintained that they had never expected perfection in this first model and that finding flaws in the design was precisely the purpose of the experiment.

Inevitably, crew members also experienced interpersonal friction. While the professionalism of the biospherians saw them through their differences, conflicts nevertheless had the potential to cause serious disruption of the mission. By the end of their two-year stay, three of the biospherians were taking part in therapy sessions by telephone.

Biosphere 2 attracted nationwide attention. The structure’s thousands of windows allowed spectators to view almost everything going on inside. This public made Biosphere 2 an excellent tool for generating interest in ecological concerns as well as in the human potential in space.

Columbia University assumed management of Biosphere 2 in 1996 and operated it as a research and education facility, conducting ecosystems studies focused on the effects of elevated carbon dioxide concentrations on plants, fish, and coral reefs. Columbia ended its association with the facility in 2003. In 2007, the Biosphere 2 campus and surrounding property were sold to a development company, which leased the core complex to the University of Arizona. The university continued use of Biosphere 2 as a center for environmental research and education and officially took control of the facility in 2011, thanks in part to a $20 million donation from the Philecology Foundation. Biosphere 2 is now a permanent part of the University of Arizona. Within the facility, scientists can manipulate environmental variables and obtain high-resolution measurements, making Biosphere 2 a unique laboratory for large-scale experiments in earth systems and environmental change and for experiments that examine climate change and sustainable development.

Bibliography

"About Biosphere 2." Biosphere 2/The University of Arizona, biosphere2.org/about/about-biosphere-2. Accessed 16 July 2024.

Alling, Abigail, and Mark Nelson. Life under Glass: The Inside Story of Biosphere 2. Oracle: Biosphere, 1993. Print.

Marino, B. D. V., and Howard T. Odum, eds. Biosphere 2: Research Past and Present. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1999. Print.

Molles, Manuel C., Jr. Ecology: Concepts and Applications. New York: McGraw, 2013. Print.

Poynter, Jane. The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2. New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2006. Print.

Reider, Rebecca. Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2009. Print.