Biosphere 2
Encyclopedia
Closed ecological system
Closed ecological systems are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.The term is most often used to describe small manmade ecosystems...
in Oracle
Oracle, Arizona
- Geology :Oracle and the surrounding area sit largely on a slab of granite called "Oracle granite" that is visible as red or grey-and-white speckled "boulders" rising over the scrub and grass. It is mostly porphyritic biotite Precambrian granite with large microcline phenocrysts, and has...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen
John P. Allen
John Polk Allen is a systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology, and was the founder of Synergia Ranch...
, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
s and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature. It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
, Biosphere 1. Earth's life system is the only biosphere currently known. Funding for the project came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass' Decisions Investment, and cost $200 million from 1985 to 2007, including land, support research greenhouses, test module and staff facilities.
Biosphere 2
With a size comparable to two and a half football fields, it remains the largest closed system ever created. The glass facility is elevated nearly 4,000 feet above sea level at the base of the Santa Catalina MountainsSanta Catalina Mountains
The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains, are located north, and northeast of Tucson, Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter. The mountain range is the most prominent in the Tucson area, with the highest average elevation...
, about a half hour outside of Tucson. The sealed nature of the structure allowed scientists to monitor the continually changing chemistry of the air, water and soil contained within. Health of the human crew was monitored by a medical doctor inside and an outside medical team.
Biosphere 2 contained representative biomes: a 1,900 square meter rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
, an 850 square meter ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
with a coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
, a 450 square meter mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
wetlands, a 1,300 square meter savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
grassland, a 1,400 square meter fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
, a 2,500 square meter agricultural system, a human habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
, and a below-ground level technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame
Space frame
A space frame or space structure is a truss-like, lightweight rigid structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports...
panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations.
Biosphere 2 had two closure experiments, Missions 1 and 2. The first, with a crew of eight people, ran for two years from 1991 to 1993. Following a six month transition period during which researchers entered the facility through airlock doors and conducted research and system engineering improvements, a second closure with a crew of seven people was conducted March 1994-September 1994. In the course of that second mission, a dispute over management of the financial aspects of the project caused the on-site management to be locked out, and the mission itself to be ended prematurely.
In 1995, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
took over management of the facility for research and as a campus until 2003. In 1996, they changed the virtually airtight, materially-closed structure designed for closed system research, to a "flow-through" system, and halted closed system research. They manipulated carbon dioxide levels for global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
research, and injected desired amounts of carbon dioxide, venting as needed.
By 2006, the property, which is in exurban
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...
Tucson, was slated to be redeveloped for a planned community. As of June 5, 2007, the property including surrounding land, totaling 1650 acres (6.7 km²), had been sold to a residential home developer for US$500 million. A development including homes and a resort hotel was planned for a portion of the land. The Biosphere itself remained open for tours.
On June 26, 2007, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced it would take over research at the Biosphere 2. The announcement ended immediate fears that the famous glass vivarium
Vivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
would be demolished. University officials said private gifts and grants enabled them to cover research and operating costs for three years with the possibility of extending that funding for 10 years. It has in fact been extended for ten years, and is engaged in multi-year research projects including research into the water use of various Arizona grass species. In June 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1.
Pilot experiments
Prior to closure of Biosphere 2, initial tests were carried out in a smaller, 480 cubic meter onsite facility (the "Test Module"), looking at potable water generation, atmospheric sealing, atmospheric expansion and contraction, and the behavior of life systems inside a closed ecological system. Three closures with one human inhabitant were carried out. This allowed advance modeling of Biosphere 2's ability to maintain carbon dioxide at acceptable levels. The notable precedent to this closed life system research had been conducted in the 1970s by the Soviet team at Bios 3.Sue Allen spent three days in the Test Module, then Abigail Alling spent five days, then finally Linda Leigh stayed three weeks. They recycled water including human waste, maintained a healthy atmosphere and tended a small agricultural area. Greenhouses at the site and Environmental Research Laboratory of the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
tested potential food cultivars and allowed the crew ("biospherians") in training to practice growing the full range of crops and raise domestic animals (chickens, goats, pigs).
The agricultural area of Biosphere 2 was planted over a year before closure, and biospherians managed their farm, growing and processing food, so that there would be a supply of food grown inside when the full closure began. During week-long periods of simulated full closure, data was gathered on agricultural operations and productivity, and crew adapted to their workload.
These mini-missions were, of course, far too short to attempt any meaningful agriculture or animal husbandry. No data was gathered that might have been useful in estimating whether the Biosphere itself was capable of sustaining eight people for two years.
First mission
The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were: medical doctor and researcher Roy WalfordRoy Walford
Roy Lee Walford, M. D. was a pioneer in the field of caloric restriction. He died at age 79 of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...
, Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter is an author, businesswoman and environmentalist. Poynter was one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. Along with seven other individuals, Poynter was confined to the sealed environment for two years....
, Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum is one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. As one of the eight participants of the two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system, MacCallum served as the team's analytical chemist....
, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling (a late replacement for Silke Schneider), Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh.
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants reported continual hunger. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.
They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet which Roy Walford had extensively studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet.
Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. Strikingly, they showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year. Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.
Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat from the plateau region of Nigeria, 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl or gallus gallus, Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these), two sows and one boar pig (feral), as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.
A strategy of "species-packing" was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
area became more chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...
due to condensation from the space frame. The savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest pioneer species
Pioneer species
Pioneer species are species which colonize previously uncolonized land, usually leading to ecological succession. They are the first organisms to start the chain of events leading to a livable biosphere or ecosystem...
grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from etiolation
Etiolation
Etiolation is a process in flowering plants grown in partial or complete absence of light. It is characterized by long, weak stems; smaller, sparser leaves due to longer internodes; and a pale yellow color . It increases the likelihood that a plant will reach a light source, often from under the...
and weakness caused by lack of stress wood
Reaction wood
Reaction wood forms when part of a woody plant is subjected to mechanical stress, and helps to bring parts of the plant into an optimal position. This stress may be the result of gravity, wind exposure, snow buildup, soil movement, etc. The reaction wood is not externally visible, although...
, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too acidic, and by installing an improved protein skimmer
Protein skimmer
A protein skimmer or foam fractionator is a device used mostly in saltwater aquaria to remove organic compounds from the water before they break down into nitrogenous waste...
to supplement the algae turf scrubber system originally installed to remove excess nutrients. The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
possibly because of reduced light levels.
Biosphere 2 suffered from CO2 levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the pollinating insects died. Insect pests, like cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es, boomed. In practice, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s, a companion to one of the tree species (Cecropia
Cecropia
Cecropia is a Neotropical genus presently consisting of sixty-one recognized species with a highly distinctive lineage of dioecious trees....
) in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species Paratrechina longicornis
Paratrechina
Paratrechina is an ant genus from the subfamily Formicinae .There are over 150 described species and subspecies, some of which occur on every continent...
, local to the area had been unintentionally sealed in and had come to dominate. Galagos reproduced in Biosphere 2, but a number of pollinating insects were lost to ant predation and several bird species were lost. However, many of the pollinating duties were performed by those ants and cockroaches.
Oxygen
During the first mission, the oxygenOxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
inside the facility, which began at 20.9%, fell at a steady pace and after 16 months was down to 14.5%. This is equivalent to the oxygen availability at an elevation of 4,080 meters (13,400 ft). Since some biospherians were starting to have symptoms like sleep apnea
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last from a few seconds to minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Similarly, each abnormally low...
and fatigue, Walford and the medical team decided to boost oxygen with injections in January and August 1993.
Daily fluctuation of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
dynamics was typically 600 ppm because of the strong drawdown during sunlight hours by plant photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
, followed by a similar rise during the nighttime when system respiration
Respiration (physiology)
'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
dominated. As expected, there was also a strong seasonal signature to CO2 levels, with wintertime levels as high as 4,000-4,500 and summertime levels near 1,000 ppm. The crew worked to manage the CO2 by occasionally turning on a CO2 scrubber, activating and de-activating the desert and savannah through control of irrigation water, cutting and storing biomass to sequester carbon, and utilizing all potential planting areas with fast-growing species to increase system photosynthesis.
Many suspected the drop in oxygen was due to microbes
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
in the soil. The soils were selected to have enough carbon to provide for the plants of the ecosystems to grow from infancy to maturity, a plant mass increase of perhaps 20 tons (18,000 kg). The release rate of that soil carbon as carbon dioxide by respiration of soil microbes was an unknown that the Biosphere 2 experiment was designed to reveal. El Nino
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years...
weather systems blocked necessary sunlight resulting in lower oxygen production.
The respiration rate was faster than the photosynthesis (possibly in part due to relatively low light penetration through the glazed structure) resulting in a slow decrease of oxygen. A mystery accompanied the oxygen decline: the corresponding increase in carbon dioxide did not appear. This concealed the underlying process until an investigation by Jeff Severinghaus and Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory using isotopic analysis showed that carbon dioxide was reacting with exposed concrete inside Biosphere 2 to form calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...
, thereby sequestering the carbon dioxide and, as part of it, the oxygen that had disappeared.
The discovery of the small difference between rate of respiration and rate of photosynthesis depended on the extremely low leak rate of Biosphere 2. It was shown by Dempster that had Biosphere 2 leaked as much as other closed ecological test chambers, the wash-out effect of outside air mixing in would have concealed the entire imbalance.
Second mission
During the transition period between missions, extensive research and system improvements had been undertaken. Concrete was sealed to prevent uptake of carbon dioxide. The second mission began on March 6, 1994, with an announced run of ten months. Crew was Norberto Romo (Capt.), John Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascale Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey, Rodrigo Romo and Tilak Mahato. The second crew achieved complete sufficiency in food production.On April 1, 1994 a severe dispute within the management team led to the ousting of the on-site management by federal marshals
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
serving a restraining order, leaving management of the mission to the Bannon & Co.team from Beverly Hills California.
At 3 am on April 5, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo, members of the first crew, deliberately vandalized the project from outside, opening a door and violating the closure.
Soon after that, the captain Norberto Romo (by then married to Margret Augustine) left the Biosphere. He was replaced by Bernd Zabel, who had been nominated as captain of the first mission but replaced at the last minute. Two months later, Matt Smith replaced Matt Finn.
The ownership and management company Space Biospheres Ventures was officially dissolved on June 1, 1994, leaving scientific and business management of the mission to the interim turnaround team under contracted by the financial partner, Decisions Investment Co .
Mission 2 was ended prematurely on September 6, 1994.
Columbia University
After a successful turnaround by Bannon & Co. in December of 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
of New York city which emabarked on a successful eight year run at the Biopshere 2 campus. Columbia ran Biosphere 2 as a research site and campus until 2003, at which time management reverted to the owners. During Columbia's tenure, Columbia students would often spend one semester at the site.
Site sold
On January 10, 2005 Decisions Investments Corporation, owner of Biosphere 2, announced that the Biosphere 2 1,600 acre campus was for sale. They preferred a research use to be found for the complex but were not excluding buyers with different intentions, such as universities, hotels, resorts, spas, etc. In June, 2007 Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
announced a $50 million sale to CDO Ranching & Development, L.P. 1,500 houses and a resort hotel were planned, but the main structure was still to be available for research and educational use.
Under new management
On June 26, 2007, the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced that it took over management of Biosphere 2, using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things.
Acquisition by University of Arizona
On June 27, 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1. CDO Ranching & Development donated the land, Biosphere buildings and several other support and administrative buildings. The Philecology Foundation (a nonprofit research foundation founded by Ed Bass) pledged $20 million for the ongoing science and operations.Engineering
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, Peter Pearce (Pearce Structures, Inc.). The window seals and structures had to be designed to be almost perfectly airtight, such that the air exchange would be extremely slow, to avoid damage to the experimental results.
The structure was notable for how it dealt with atmospheric expansion. During the day, the heat from the sun caused the air inside to expand and during the night it cooled and contracted. To avoid having to deal with the huge forces that maintaining a constant volume would create, the structure had large diaphragms kept in domes called "lungs".
Since opening a window was impossible, the structure also required huge air conditioners to control the temperature and avoid killing the plants within. For every unit of solar energy that entered the structure, the air conditioners would expend approximately three times as much energy to cool the habitat back down.
Science
A special issue of the Ecological Engineering journal edited by B.D.V. Marino and Howard T. Odum (1999), published as "Biosphere 2: Research Past and Present" (Elsevier, 1999) represents the most comprehensive assemblage of collected papers and findings from Biosphere 2. The papers range from calibrated models that describe the system metabolism, hydrologic balance, and heat and humidity, to papers that describe rainforest, mangrove, ocean, and agronomic system development in this carbon dioxide-rich environment.Evaluation
One view of Biosphere 2 was that it was "the most exciting scientific project to be undertaken in the U.S. since President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
launched us toward the moon". Others called it "New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
drivel masquerading as science". The Institute for Ecotechnics, which awarded Margret Augustine and other Biospherians their science credentials, was shown by a CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
documentary to be nothing more than an art gallery and café in London. John Allen and Roy Walford did have mainstream credentials. John Allen held a degree in Metallurgical-Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Roy Walford received his doctorate of medicine from the University of Chicago and taught at UCLA as a Professor of Pathology for 25 years.
Further damaging the credentials of the participants, Marc Cooper wrote that "the group that built, conceived, and directs the Biosphere project is not a group of high-tech researchers on the cutting edge of science but a clique of recycled theater performers that evolved out of an authoritarian – and decidedly non-scientific – personality cult". He was referring to the Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch is an ecovillage founded in 1969 by John P. Allen, the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2.-External Links:** by Rebecca Reider, ISBN 978-0826346735...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, an outpost of the Institute of Ecotechnics where indeed many of the Biospherians did practice improv theater under John Allen's leadership, and began to develop the ideas behind Biosphere 2. However, the original Biosphere 2 Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Tom Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, in the report of August 1992 reported: "The committee is in agreement that the conception and construction of Biosphere 2 were acts of vision and courage. The scale of Biosphere 2 is unique and Biosphere 2 is already providing unexpected scientific results not possible through other means (notably the documented, unexpected decline in atmospheric oxygen levels.) Biosphere 2 will make important scientific contributions in the fields of biogeochemical cycling, the ecology of closed ecological systems, and restoration ecology." Furthermore, Columbia University assembled outside scientists to evaluate the potential of the facility, and concluded: "A group of world-class scientists got together and decided the Biosphere 2 facility is an exceptional laboratory for addressing critical questions relative to the future of Earth and its environment." Dr. Michael Crow,Vice-Provost of Columbia University, Press Release December 20, 1994.
One of their own scientific consultants came to be critical of the enterprise, too. Dr. Ghillean Prance
Ghillean Prance
Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance FRS VMH is a prominent British botanist and ecologist.He has published extensively on the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but he perhaps drew more attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica...
, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
in Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
, designed the rainforest biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
inside the Biosphere. In a 1983 interview, Prance said, "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system.". After this statement however he initiated a renewed collaboration with Biosphere 2 and became a consultant from 1987 to 1993.
Psychology and conflict
Much of the evidence for isolated human groups comes from psychological studies of scientists overwintering in AntarcticAntarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
research stations. The study of this phenomenon is "confined environment psychology", and according to Jane Poynter
Closed ecological system
Closed ecological systems are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.The term is most often used to describe small manmade ecosystems...
in Oracle
Oracle, Arizona
- Geology :Oracle and the surrounding area sit largely on a slab of granite called "Oracle granite" that is visible as red or grey-and-white speckled "boulders" rising over the scrub and grass. It is mostly porphyritic biotite Precambrian granite with large microcline phenocrysts, and has...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen
John P. Allen
John Polk Allen is a systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology, and was the founder of Synergia Ranch...
, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
s and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature."Using a closed ecological system to study Earth's biosphere: Initial results from Biosphere 2." Bioscience 43(4): 225-236 It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
, Biosphere 1. Earth's life system is the only biosphere currently known. Funding for the project came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass' Decisions Investment, and cost $200 million from 1985 to 2007, including land, support research greenhouses, test module and staff facilities.
Biosphere 2
With a size comparable to two and a half football fields, it remains the largest closed system ever created. The glass facility is elevated nearly 4,000 feet above sea level at the base of the Santa Catalina MountainsSanta Catalina Mountains
The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains, are located north, and northeast of Tucson, Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter. The mountain range is the most prominent in the Tucson area, with the highest average elevation...
, about a half hour outside of Tucson.Specials The sealed nature of the structure allowed scientists to monitor the continually changing chemistry of the air, water and soil contained within. Health of the human crew was monitored by a medical doctor inside and an outside medical team.
Biosphere 2 contained representative biomes: a 1,900 square meter rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
, an 850 square meter ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
with a coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
, a 450 square meter mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
wetlands, a 1,300 square meter savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
grassland, a 1,400 square meter fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
, a 2,500 square meter agricultural system, a human habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
, and a below-ground level technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame
Space frame
A space frame or space structure is a truss-like, lightweight rigid structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports...
panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations.
Biosphere 2 had two closure experiments, Missions 1 and 2. The first, with a crew of eight people, ran for two years from 1991 to 1993. Following a six month transition period during which researchers entered the facility through airlock doors and conducted research and system engineering improvements, a second closure with a crew of seven people was conducted March 1994-September 1994. In the course of that second mission, a dispute over management of the financial aspects of the project caused the on-site management to be locked out, and the mission itself to be ended prematurely.
In 1995, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
took over management of the facility for research and as a campus until 2003. In 1996, they changed the virtually airtight, materially-closed structure designed for closed system research, to a "flow-through" system, and halted closed system research. They manipulated carbon dioxide levels for global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
research, and injected desired amounts of carbon dioxide, venting as needed.Marino, B.D.V., and H.T. Odum, Biosphere 2, Introduction and research progress, Ecological Engineering, 13, 3-14, 1999
By 2006, the property, which is in exurban
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...
Tucson, was slated to be redeveloped for a planned community. As of June 5, 2007, the property including surrounding land, totaling 1650 acres (6.7 km²), had been sold to a residential home developer for US$500 million. A development including homes and a resort hotel was planned for a portion of the land. The Biosphere itself remained open for tours.
On June 26, 2007, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced it would take over research at the Biosphere 2. The announcement ended immediate fears that the famous glass vivarium
Vivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
would be demolished. University officials said private gifts and grants enabled them to cover research and operating costs for three years with the possibility of extending that funding for 10 years. It has in fact been extended for ten years, and is engaged in multi-year research projects including research into the water use of various Arizona grass species. In June 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1.
Pilot experiments
Prior to closure of Biosphere 2, initial tests were carried out in a smaller, 480 cubic meter onsite facility (the "Test Module"), looking at potable water generation, atmospheric sealing, atmospheric expansion and contraction, and the behavior of life systems inside a closed ecological system. Three closures with one human inhabitant were carried out. This allowed advance modeling of Biosphere 2's ability to maintain carbon dioxide at acceptable levels.Alling, A., M. Nelson, L. Leigh, R. Frye, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum, and J. Allen). 1993. "Experiments on the Closed Ecological System in the Biosphere 2 Test Module." Ecological Microcosms. Springer-Verlag, New York by H.T. Odum and R. Beyers. Pp. 463-479 The notable precedent to this closed life system research had been conducted in the 1970s by the Soviet team at Bios 3.Sue Allen spent three days in the Test Module, then Abigail Alling spent five days, then finally Linda Leigh stayed three weeks. They recycled water including human waste, maintained a healthy atmosphere and tended a small agricultural area. Greenhouses at the site and Environmental Research Laboratory of the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
tested potential food cultivars and allowed the crew ("biospherians") in training to practice growing the full range of crops and raise domestic animals (chickens, goats, pigs).Frye. R. and C. Hodges. 1990. Soil Bed Reactor Research of the Environmental Research Laboratory in Support of Research and Development of Biosphere 2. Biological Life Support Technologies: Commercial Opportunities. Synergetic Press/NASA Conf. Publication #3094
The agricultural area of Biosphere 2 was planted over a year before closure, and biospherians managed their farm, growing and processing food, so that there would be a supply of food grown inside when the full closure began. During week-long periods of simulated full closure, data was gathered on agricultural operations and productivity, and crew adapted to their workload.
These mini-missions were, of course, far too short to attempt any meaningful agriculture or animal husbandry. No data was gathered that might have been useful in estimating whether the Biosphere itself was capable of sustaining eight people for two years.
First mission
The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were: medical doctor and researcher Roy WalfordRoy Walford
Roy Lee Walford, M. D. was a pioneer in the field of caloric restriction. He died at age 79 of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...
, Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter is an author, businesswoman and environmentalist. Poynter was one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. Along with seven other individuals, Poynter was confined to the sealed environment for two years....
, Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum is one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. As one of the eight participants of the two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system, MacCallum served as the team's analytical chemist....
, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling (a late replacement for Silke Schneider), Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh.
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. Silverstone, S. and M. Nelson. 1996. "Food Production and Nutrition in Biosphere 2: Results from the First Mission September 1991 to September 1993." Adv. Space Res. Vol. 18, No. 4/5 pp. 49-61 No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants reported continual hunger. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.
They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet which Roy Walford had extensively studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet.
Walford, R., Mock D, Verdery R, MacCallum T. 2002. "Calorie Restriction in Biosphere 2 Alterations in Physiologic, Hematologic, Hormonal, and
Biochemical Parameters in Humans Restricted for a 2-Year Period". The Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Volume 57, Issue 6, Pp. B211-B224. Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. Strikingly, they showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year.Walford, R.L., S.B. Harris, and M.W. Gunion. 1992. Calorically restricted low-fat nutrient-dense diet in Biosphere 2 significantly lowers blood glucose, total leukocyte count, cholesterol, and blood pressure in humans. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences, USA, V. 89, n. 23: 11533-11537 Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.Christian Weyer, Roy L Walford, Inge T Harper, Mike Milner, Taber MacCallum, P Antonio Tataranni and Eric Ravussin, Energy metabolism after 2 y of energy restriction: the Biosphere 2 experiment, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 72, No. 4, 946-953, October 2000
Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat from the plateau region of Nigeria, 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl or gallus gallus, Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these), two sows and one boar pig (feral), as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.
A strategy of "species-packing" was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
area became more chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...
due to condensation from the space frame. The savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest pioneer species
Pioneer species
Pioneer species are species which colonize previously uncolonized land, usually leading to ecological succession. They are the first organisms to start the chain of events leading to a livable biosphere or ecosystem...
grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from etiolation
Etiolation
Etiolation is a process in flowering plants grown in partial or complete absence of light. It is characterized by long, weak stems; smaller, sparser leaves due to longer internodes; and a pale yellow color . It increases the likelihood that a plant will reach a light source, often from under the...
and weakness caused by lack of stress wood
Reaction wood
Reaction wood forms when part of a woody plant is subjected to mechanical stress, and helps to bring parts of the plant into an optimal position. This stress may be the result of gravity, wind exposure, snow buildup, soil movement, etc. The reaction wood is not externally visible, although...
, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too acidic, and by installing an improved protein skimmer
Protein skimmer
A protein skimmer or foam fractionator is a device used mostly in saltwater aquaria to remove organic compounds from the water before they break down into nitrogenous waste...
to supplement the algae turf scrubber system originally installed to remove excess nutrients.Nelson, M. and W. Dempster. 1996. "Living in Space: Results from Biosphere 2's Initial Closure, an Early Testbed for Closed Ecological Systems on Mars." American Astronautical Society: Science & Technology Series. Vol. 86, pp.363-390. AAS 95-488 The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
possibly because of reduced light levels.Finn, M. 1996. Comparison of mangrove forest structure and function in a mesocosm and Florida. Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington D.C
Biosphere 2 suffered from CO2 levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the pollinating insects died.college-level textbook Biology by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece Insect pests, like cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es, boomed. In practice, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s, a companion to one of the tree species (Cecropia
Cecropia
Cecropia is a Neotropical genus presently consisting of sixty-one recognized species with a highly distinctive lineage of dioecious trees....
) in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species Paratrechina longicornis
Paratrechina
Paratrechina is an ant genus from the subfamily Formicinae .There are over 150 described species and subspecies, some of which occur on every continent...
, local to the area had been unintentionally sealed in and had come to dominate. Galagos reproduced in Biosphere 2, but a number of pollinating insects were lost to ant predation and several bird species were lost. However, many of the pollinating duties were performed by those ants and cockroaches.
Oxygen
During the first mission, the oxygenOxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
inside the facility, which began at 20.9%, fell at a steady pace and after 16 months was down to 14.5%. This is equivalent to the oxygen availability at an elevation of 4,080 meters (13,400 ft). Since some biospherians were starting to have symptoms like sleep apnea
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last from a few seconds to minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Similarly, each abnormally low...
and fatigue, Walford and the medical team decided to boost oxygen with injections in January and August 1993.
Daily fluctuation of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
dynamics was typically 600 ppm because of the strong drawdown during sunlight hours by plant photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
, followed by a similar rise during the nighttime when system respiration
Respiration (physiology)
'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
dominated. As expected, there was also a strong seasonal signature to CO2 levels, with wintertime levels as high as 4,000-4,500 and summertime levels near 1,000 ppm. The crew worked to manage the CO2 by occasionally turning on a CO2 scrubber, activating and de-activating the desert and savannah through control of irrigation water, cutting and storing biomass to sequester carbon, and utilizing all potential planting areas with fast-growing species to increase system photosynthesis.Nelson, M, W. F. Dempster, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum. 1994, Atmospheric Dynamics and bioregenerative technologies in a soil-based ecological life support system: Initial results from Biosphere 2. Advances in Space Research14 (11):417-426)
Many suspected the drop in oxygen was due to microbes
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
in the soil. The soils were selected to have enough carbon to provide for the plants of the ecosystems to grow from infancy to maturity, a plant mass increase of perhaps 20 tons (18,000 kg).Nelson and Dempster, 1996, op cit. The release rate of that soil carbon as carbon dioxide by respiration of soil microbes was an unknown that the Biosphere 2 experiment was designed to reveal. El Nino
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years...
weather systems blocked necessary sunlight resulting in lower oxygen production.
The respiration rate was faster than the photosynthesis (possibly in part due to relatively low light penetration through the glazed structure) resulting in a slow decrease of oxygen. A mystery accompanied the oxygen decline: the corresponding increase in carbon dioxide did not appear. This concealed the underlying process until an investigation by Jeff Severinghaus and Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory using isotopic analysis showed that carbon dioxide was reacting with exposed concrete inside Biosphere 2 to form calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...
, thereby sequestering the carbon dioxide and, as part of it, the oxygen that had disappeared.Severinghaus, J.P. , W. Broecker, W. Dempster, T. MacCallum, and M. Wahlen. 1994. Oxygen Loss in Biosphere 2. EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 33, 35-37
The discovery of the small difference between rate of respiration and rate of photosynthesis depended on the extremely low leak rate of Biosphere 2. It was shown by Dempster that had Biosphere 2 leaked as much as other closed ecological test chambers, the wash-out effect of outside air mixing in would have concealed the entire imbalance.
Second mission
During the transition period between missions, extensive research and system improvements had been undertaken. Concrete was sealed to prevent uptake of carbon dioxide. The second mission began on March 6, 1994, with an announced run of ten months. Crew was Norberto Romo (Capt.), John Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascale Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey, Rodrigo Romo and Tilak Mahato. The second crew achieved complete sufficiency in food production.Marino, B.D.V., Mahato, T.R. et al., 1999, The agricultural biome of Biosphere 2: structure, composition and function, Ecological Engineering 13: 199-234On April 1, 1994 a severe disputeand utter mismanagement the project was put into receivership and an outside management turnaround team was installed for the receiver to turnaround the floundering project. The reason for the dispute was three fold. Mismanagement of mission had caused terrible publicity, finacial mismanagement and lack of research. People alleged gross financial mis-management of the project, leading to a loss of $25 million in fiscal 1992 -Poynter, pp325-6 within the management team led to the ousting of the on-site management by federal marshals
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
serving a restraining order,Poynter, pp. 324–6 leaving management of the mission to the Bannon & Co.team from Beverly Hills California.
At 3 am on April 5, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo, members of the first crew, deliberately vandalized the project from outside, opening a door and violating the closure.
Soon after that, the captain Norberto Romo (by then married to Margret Augustine) left the Biosphere. He was replaced by Bernd Zabel, who had been nominated as captain of the first mission but replaced at the last minute. Two months later, Matt Smith replaced Matt Finn.
The ownership and management company Space Biospheres Ventures was officially dissolved on June 1, 1994, leaving scientific and business management of the mission to the interim turnaround team under contracted by the financial partner, Decisions Investment Co .
Mission 2 was ended prematurely on September 6, 1994.
Columbia University
After a successful turnaround by Bannon & Co. in December of 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
of New York city which emabarked on a successful eight year run at the Biopshere 2 campus. Columbia ran Biosphere 2 as a research site and campus until 2003, at which time management reverted to the owners. During Columbia's tenure, Columbia students would often spend one semester at the site.
Site sold
On January 10, 2005 Decisions Investments Corporation, owner of Biosphere 2, announced that the Biosphere 2 1,600 acre campus was for sale. They preferred a research use to be found for the complex but were not excluding buyers with different intentions, such as universities, hotels, resorts, spas, etc. In June, 2007 Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
announced a $50 million sale to CDO Ranching & Development, L.P. 1,500 houses and a resort hotel were planned, but the main structure was still to be available for research and educational use.
Under new management
On June 26, 2007, the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced that it took over management of Biosphere 2, using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things.
Acquisition by University of Arizona
On June 27, 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1. CDO Ranching & Development donated the land, Biosphere buildings and several other support and administrative buildings. The Philecology Foundation (a nonprofit research foundation founded by Ed Bass) pledged $20 million for the ongoing science and operations.Engineering
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, Peter Pearce (Pearce Structures, Inc.). The window seals and structures had to be designed to be almost perfectly airtight, such that the air exchange would be extremely slow, to avoid damage to the experimental results.
The structure was notable for how it dealt with atmospheric expansion. During the day, the heat from the sun caused the air inside to expand and during the night it cooled and contracted. To avoid having to deal with the huge forces that maintaining a constant volume would create, the structure had large diaphragms kept in domes called "lungs".
Since opening a window was impossible, the structure also required huge air conditioners to control the temperature and avoid killing the plants within. For every unit of solar energy that entered the structure, the air conditioners would expend approximately three times as much energy to cool the habitat back down.
Science
A special issue of the Ecological Engineering journal edited by B.D.V. Marino and Howard T. Odum (1999), published as "Biosphere 2: Research Past and Present" (Elsevier, 1999) represents the most comprehensive assemblage of collected papers and findings from Biosphere 2. The papers range from calibrated models that describe the system metabolism, hydrologic balance, and heat and humidity, to papers that describe rainforest, mangrove, ocean, and agronomic system development in this carbon dioxide-rich environment.For a complete list of Biosphere 2 scientific papers and publications see http://biospheres.com/publications.html.For research projects and consultants during the first closure experiment: http://biospheres.com/resbio2jntstudy1.htmlEvaluation
One view of Biosphere 2 was that it was "the most exciting scientific project to be undertaken in the U.S. since President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
launched us toward the moon".Discover, May 1987. Others called it "New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
drivel masquerading as science".Ecology, 73(2), 1992, p.713 The Institute for Ecotechnics, which awarded Margret Augustine and other Biospherians their science credentials, was shown by a CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
documentary to be nothing more than an art gallery and café in London.Ibid. John Allen and Roy Walford did have mainstream credentials. John Allen held a degree in Metallurgical-Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.Ibid. Roy Walford received his doctorate of medicine from the University of Chicago and taught at UCLA as a Professor of Pathology for 25 years.
Further damaging the credentials of the participants, Marc Cooper wroteCooper, Marc. "Take This Terrarium and Shove It", Village Voice, 1991. that "the group that built, conceived, and directs the Biosphere project is not a group of high-tech researchers on the cutting edge of science but a clique of recycled theater performers that evolved out of an authoritarian – and decidedly non-scientific – personality cult". He was referring to the Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch is an ecovillage founded in 1969 by John P. Allen, the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2.-External Links:** by Rebecca Reider, ISBN 978-0826346735...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, an outpost of the Institute of Ecotechnics where indeed many of the Biospherians did practice improv theater under John Allen's leadership, and began to develop the ideas behind Biosphere 2.Poynter, pp. 17–20 However, the original Biosphere 2 Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Tom Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, in the report of August 1992 reported: "The committee is in agreement that the conception and construction of Biosphere 2 were acts of vision and courage. The scale of Biosphere 2 is unique and Biosphere 2 is already providing unexpected scientific results not possible through other means (notably the documented, unexpected decline in atmospheric oxygen levels.) Biosphere 2 will make important scientific contributions in the fields of biogeochemical cycling, the ecology of closed ecological systems, and restoration ecology." Furthermore, Columbia University assembled outside scientists to evaluate the potential of the facility, and concluded: "A group of world-class scientists got together and decided the Biosphere 2 facility is an exceptional laboratory for addressing critical questions relative to the future of Earth and its environment." Dr. Michael Crow,Vice-Provost of Columbia University, Press Release December 20, 1994.
One of their own scientific consultants came to be critical of the enterprise, too. Dr. Ghillean Prance
Ghillean Prance
Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance FRS VMH is a prominent British botanist and ecologist.He has published extensively on the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but he perhaps drew more attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica...
, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
in Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
, designed the rainforest biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
inside the Biosphere. In a 1983 interview, Prance said, "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system.".Phoenix New Times, June 19, 1991. After this statement however he initiated a renewed collaboration with Biosphere 2 and became a consultant from 1987 to 1993.
Psychology and conflict
Much of the evidence for isolated human groups comes from psychological studies of scientists overwintering in AntarcticAntarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
research stations.Science Notes 2000 - Only the Lonely The study of this phenomenon is "confined environment psychology", and according to Jane PoynterPoynter, op. cit.
Closed ecological system
Closed ecological systems are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.The term is most often used to describe small manmade ecosystems...
in Oracle
Oracle, Arizona
- Geology :Oracle and the surrounding area sit largely on a slab of granite called "Oracle granite" that is visible as red or grey-and-white speckled "boulders" rising over the scrub and grass. It is mostly porphyritic biotite Precambrian granite with large microcline phenocrysts, and has...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen
John P. Allen
John Polk Allen is a systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology, and was the founder of Synergia Ranch...
, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
s and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature."Using a closed ecological system to study Earth's biosphere: Initial results from Biosphere 2." Bioscience 43(4): 225-236 It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
, Biosphere 1. Earth's life system is the only biosphere currently known. Funding for the project came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass' Decisions Investment, and cost $200 million from 1985 to 2007, including land, support research greenhouses, test module and staff facilities.
Biosphere 2
With a size comparable to two and a half football fields, it remains the largest closed system ever created. The glass facility is elevated nearly 4,000 feet above sea level at the base of the Santa Catalina MountainsSanta Catalina Mountains
The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains, are located north, and northeast of Tucson, Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter. The mountain range is the most prominent in the Tucson area, with the highest average elevation...
, about a half hour outside of Tucson.Specials The sealed nature of the structure allowed scientists to monitor the continually changing chemistry of the air, water and soil contained within. Health of the human crew was monitored by a medical doctor inside and an outside medical team.
Biosphere 2 contained representative biomes: a 1,900 square meter rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
, an 850 square meter ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
with a coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
, a 450 square meter mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
wetlands, a 1,300 square meter savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
grassland, a 1,400 square meter fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
, a 2,500 square meter agricultural system, a human habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
, and a below-ground level technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame
Space frame
A space frame or space structure is a truss-like, lightweight rigid structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports...
panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations.
Biosphere 2 had two closure experiments, Missions 1 and 2. The first, with a crew of eight people, ran for two years from 1991 to 1993. Following a six month transition period during which researchers entered the facility through airlock doors and conducted research and system engineering improvements, a second closure with a crew of seven people was conducted March 1994-September 1994. In the course of that second mission, a dispute over management of the financial aspects of the project caused the on-site management to be locked out, and the mission itself to be ended prematurely.
In 1995, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
took over management of the facility for research and as a campus until 2003. In 1996, they changed the virtually airtight, materially-closed structure designed for closed system research, to a "flow-through" system, and halted closed system research. They manipulated carbon dioxide levels for global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
research, and injected desired amounts of carbon dioxide, venting as needed.Marino, B.D.V., and H.T. Odum, Biosphere 2, Introduction and research progress, Ecological Engineering, 13, 3-14, 1999
By 2006, the property, which is in exurban
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...
Tucson, was slated to be redeveloped for a planned community. As of June 5, 2007, the property including surrounding land, totaling 1650 acres (6.7 km²), had been sold to a residential home developer for US$500 million. A development including homes and a resort hotel was planned for a portion of the land. The Biosphere itself remained open for tours.
On June 26, 2007, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced it would take over research at the Biosphere 2. The announcement ended immediate fears that the famous glass vivarium
Vivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
would be demolished. University officials said private gifts and grants enabled them to cover research and operating costs for three years with the possibility of extending that funding for 10 years. It has in fact been extended for ten years, and is engaged in multi-year research projects including research into the water use of various Arizona grass species. In June 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1.
Pilot experiments
Prior to closure of Biosphere 2, initial tests were carried out in a smaller, 480 cubic meter onsite facility (the "Test Module"), looking at potable water generation, atmospheric sealing, atmospheric expansion and contraction, and the behavior of life systems inside a closed ecological system. Three closures with one human inhabitant were carried out. This allowed advance modeling of Biosphere 2's ability to maintain carbon dioxide at acceptable levels.Alling, A., M. Nelson, L. Leigh, R. Frye, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum, and J. Allen). 1993. "Experiments on the Closed Ecological System in the Biosphere 2 Test Module." Ecological Microcosms. Springer-Verlag, New York by H.T. Odum and R. Beyers. Pp. 463-479 The notable precedent to this closed life system research had been conducted in the 1970s by the Soviet team at Bios 3.Sue Allen spent three days in the Test Module, then Abigail Alling spent five days, then finally Linda Leigh stayed three weeks. They recycled water including human waste, maintained a healthy atmosphere and tended a small agricultural area. Greenhouses at the site and Environmental Research Laboratory of the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
tested potential food cultivars and allowed the crew ("biospherians") in training to practice growing the full range of crops and raise domestic animals (chickens, goats, pigs).Frye. R. and C. Hodges. 1990. Soil Bed Reactor Research of the Environmental Research Laboratory in Support of Research and Development of Biosphere 2. Biological Life Support Technologies: Commercial Opportunities. Synergetic Press/NASA Conf. Publication #3094
The agricultural area of Biosphere 2 was planted over a year before closure, and biospherians managed their farm, growing and processing food, so that there would be a supply of food grown inside when the full closure began. During week-long periods of simulated full closure, data was gathered on agricultural operations and productivity, and crew adapted to their workload.
These mini-missions were, of course, far too short to attempt any meaningful agriculture or animal husbandry. No data was gathered that might have been useful in estimating whether the Biosphere itself was capable of sustaining eight people for two years.
First mission
The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were: medical doctor and researcher Roy WalfordRoy Walford
Roy Lee Walford, M. D. was a pioneer in the field of caloric restriction. He died at age 79 of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...
, Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter is an author, businesswoman and environmentalist. Poynter was one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. Along with seven other individuals, Poynter was confined to the sealed environment for two years....
, Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum is one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. As one of the eight participants of the two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system, MacCallum served as the team's analytical chemist....
, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling (a late replacement for Silke Schneider), Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh.
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. Silverstone, S. and M. Nelson. 1996. "Food Production and Nutrition in Biosphere 2: Results from the First Mission September 1991 to September 1993." Adv. Space Res. Vol. 18, No. 4/5 pp. 49-61 No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants reported continual hunger. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.
They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet which Roy Walford had extensively studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet.
Walford, R., Mock D, Verdery R, MacCallum T. 2002. "Calorie Restriction in Biosphere 2 Alterations in Physiologic, Hematologic, Hormonal, and
Biochemical Parameters in Humans Restricted for a 2-Year Period". The Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Volume 57, Issue 6, Pp. B211-B224. Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. Strikingly, they showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year.Walford, R.L., S.B. Harris, and M.W. Gunion. 1992. Calorically restricted low-fat nutrient-dense diet in Biosphere 2 significantly lowers blood glucose, total leukocyte count, cholesterol, and blood pressure in humans. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences, USA, V. 89, n. 23: 11533-11537 Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.Christian Weyer, Roy L Walford, Inge T Harper, Mike Milner, Taber MacCallum, P Antonio Tataranni and Eric Ravussin, Energy metabolism after 2 y of energy restriction: the Biosphere 2 experiment, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 72, No. 4, 946-953, October 2000
Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat from the plateau region of Nigeria, 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl or gallus gallus, Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these), two sows and one boar pig (feral), as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.
A strategy of "species-packing" was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
area became more chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...
due to condensation from the space frame. The savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest pioneer species
Pioneer species
Pioneer species are species which colonize previously uncolonized land, usually leading to ecological succession. They are the first organisms to start the chain of events leading to a livable biosphere or ecosystem...
grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from etiolation
Etiolation
Etiolation is a process in flowering plants grown in partial or complete absence of light. It is characterized by long, weak stems; smaller, sparser leaves due to longer internodes; and a pale yellow color . It increases the likelihood that a plant will reach a light source, often from under the...
and weakness caused by lack of stress wood
Reaction wood
Reaction wood forms when part of a woody plant is subjected to mechanical stress, and helps to bring parts of the plant into an optimal position. This stress may be the result of gravity, wind exposure, snow buildup, soil movement, etc. The reaction wood is not externally visible, although...
, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too acidic, and by installing an improved protein skimmer
Protein skimmer
A protein skimmer or foam fractionator is a device used mostly in saltwater aquaria to remove organic compounds from the water before they break down into nitrogenous waste...
to supplement the algae turf scrubber system originally installed to remove excess nutrients.Nelson, M. and W. Dempster. 1996. "Living in Space: Results from Biosphere 2's Initial Closure, an Early Testbed for Closed Ecological Systems on Mars." American Astronautical Society: Science & Technology Series. Vol. 86, pp.363-390. AAS 95-488 The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
possibly because of reduced light levels.Finn, M. 1996. Comparison of mangrove forest structure and function in a mesocosm and Florida. Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington D.C
Biosphere 2 suffered from CO2 levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the pollinating insects died.college-level textbook Biology by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece Insect pests, like cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es, boomed. In practice, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s, a companion to one of the tree species (Cecropia
Cecropia
Cecropia is a Neotropical genus presently consisting of sixty-one recognized species with a highly distinctive lineage of dioecious trees....
) in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species Paratrechina longicornis
Paratrechina
Paratrechina is an ant genus from the subfamily Formicinae .There are over 150 described species and subspecies, some of which occur on every continent...
, local to the area had been unintentionally sealed in and had come to dominate. Galagos reproduced in Biosphere 2, but a number of pollinating insects were lost to ant predation and several bird species were lost. However, many of the pollinating duties were performed by those ants and cockroaches.
Oxygen
During the first mission, the oxygenOxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
inside the facility, which began at 20.9%, fell at a steady pace and after 16 months was down to 14.5%. This is equivalent to the oxygen availability at an elevation of 4,080 meters (13,400 ft). Since some biospherians were starting to have symptoms like sleep apnea
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last from a few seconds to minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Similarly, each abnormally low...
and fatigue, Walford and the medical team decided to boost oxygen with injections in January and August 1993.
Daily fluctuation of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
dynamics was typically 600 ppm because of the strong drawdown during sunlight hours by plant photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
, followed by a similar rise during the nighttime when system respiration
Respiration (physiology)
'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
dominated. As expected, there was also a strong seasonal signature to CO2 levels, with wintertime levels as high as 4,000-4,500 and summertime levels near 1,000 ppm. The crew worked to manage the CO2 by occasionally turning on a CO2 scrubber, activating and de-activating the desert and savannah through control of irrigation water, cutting and storing biomass to sequester carbon, and utilizing all potential planting areas with fast-growing species to increase system photosynthesis.Nelson, M, W. F. Dempster, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum. 1994, Atmospheric Dynamics and bioregenerative technologies in a soil-based ecological life support system: Initial results from Biosphere 2. Advances in Space Research14 (11):417-426)
Many suspected the drop in oxygen was due to microbes
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
in the soil. The soils were selected to have enough carbon to provide for the plants of the ecosystems to grow from infancy to maturity, a plant mass increase of perhaps 20 tons (18,000 kg).Nelson and Dempster, 1996, op cit. The release rate of that soil carbon as carbon dioxide by respiration of soil microbes was an unknown that the Biosphere 2 experiment was designed to reveal. El Nino
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years...
weather systems blocked necessary sunlight resulting in lower oxygen production.
The respiration rate was faster than the photosynthesis (possibly in part due to relatively low light penetration through the glazed structure) resulting in a slow decrease of oxygen. A mystery accompanied the oxygen decline: the corresponding increase in carbon dioxide did not appear. This concealed the underlying process until an investigation by Jeff Severinghaus and Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory using isotopic analysis showed that carbon dioxide was reacting with exposed concrete inside Biosphere 2 to form calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...
, thereby sequestering the carbon dioxide and, as part of it, the oxygen that had disappeared.Severinghaus, J.P. , W. Broecker, W. Dempster, T. MacCallum, and M. Wahlen. 1994. Oxygen Loss in Biosphere 2. EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 33, 35-37
The discovery of the small difference between rate of respiration and rate of photosynthesis depended on the extremely low leak rate of Biosphere 2. It was shown by Dempster that had Biosphere 2 leaked as much as other closed ecological test chambers, the wash-out effect of outside air mixing in would have concealed the entire imbalance.
Second mission
During the transition period between missions, extensive research and system improvements had been undertaken. Concrete was sealed to prevent uptake of carbon dioxide. The second mission began on March 6, 1994, with an announced run of ten months. Crew was Norberto Romo (Capt.), John Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascale Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey, Rodrigo Romo and Tilak Mahato. The second crew achieved complete sufficiency in food production.Marino, B.D.V., Mahato, T.R. et al., 1999, The agricultural biome of Biosphere 2: structure, composition and function, Ecological Engineering 13: 199-234On April 1, 1994 a severe disputeand utter mismanagement the project was put into receivership and an outside management turnaround team was installed for the receiver to turnaround the floundering project. The reason for the dispute was three fold. Mismanagement of mission had caused terrible publicity, finacial mismanagement and lack of research. People alleged gross financial mis-management of the project, leading to a loss of $25 million in fiscal 1992 -Poynter, pp325-6 within the management team led to the ousting of the on-site management by federal marshals
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
serving a restraining order,Poynter, pp. 324–6 leaving management of the mission to the Bannon & Co.team from Beverly Hills California.
At 3 am on April 5, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo, members of the first crew, deliberately vandalized the project from outside, opening a door and violating the closure.
Soon after that, the captain Norberto Romo (by then married to Margret Augustine) left the Biosphere. He was replaced by Bernd Zabel, who had been nominated as captain of the first mission but replaced at the last minute. Two months later, Matt Smith replaced Matt Finn.
The ownership and management company Space Biospheres Ventures was officially dissolved on June 1, 1994, leaving scientific and business management of the mission to the interim turnaround team under contracted by the financial partner, Decisions Investment Co .
Mission 2 was ended prematurely on September 6, 1994.
Columbia University
After a successful turnaround by Bannon & Co. in December of 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
of New York city which emabarked on a successful eight year run at the Biopshere 2 campus. Columbia ran Biosphere 2 as a research site and campus until 2003, at which time management reverted to the owners. During Columbia's tenure, Columbia students would often spend one semester at the site.
Site sold
On January 10, 2005 Decisions Investments Corporation, owner of Biosphere 2, announced that the Biosphere 2 1,600 acre campus was for sale. They preferred a research use to be found for the complex but were not excluding buyers with different intentions, such as universities, hotels, resorts, spas, etc. In June, 2007 Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
announced a $50 million sale to CDO Ranching & Development, L.P. 1,500 houses and a resort hotel were planned, but the main structure was still to be available for research and educational use.
Under new management
On June 26, 2007, the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced that it took over management of Biosphere 2, using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things.
Acquisition by University of Arizona
On June 27, 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1. CDO Ranching & Development donated the land, Biosphere buildings and several other support and administrative buildings. The Philecology Foundation (a nonprofit research foundation founded by Ed Bass) pledged $20 million for the ongoing science and operations.Engineering
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, Peter Pearce (Pearce Structures, Inc.). The window seals and structures had to be designed to be almost perfectly airtight, such that the air exchange would be extremely slow, to avoid damage to the experimental results.
The structure was notable for how it dealt with atmospheric expansion. During the day, the heat from the sun caused the air inside to expand and during the night it cooled and contracted. To avoid having to deal with the huge forces that maintaining a constant volume would create, the structure had large diaphragms kept in domes called "lungs".
Since opening a window was impossible, the structure also required huge air conditioners to control the temperature and avoid killing the plants within. For every unit of solar energy that entered the structure, the air conditioners would expend approximately three times as much energy to cool the habitat back down.
Science
A special issue of the Ecological Engineering journal edited by B.D.V. Marino and Howard T. Odum (1999), published as "Biosphere 2: Research Past and Present" (Elsevier, 1999) represents the most comprehensive assemblage of collected papers and findings from Biosphere 2. The papers range from calibrated models that describe the system metabolism, hydrologic balance, and heat and humidity, to papers that describe rainforest, mangrove, ocean, and agronomic system development in this carbon dioxide-rich environment.For a complete list of Biosphere 2 scientific papers and publications see http://biospheres.com/publications.html.For research projects and consultants during the first closure experiment: http://biospheres.com/resbio2jntstudy1.htmlEvaluation
One view of Biosphere 2 was that it was "the most exciting scientific project to be undertaken in the U.S. since President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
launched us toward the moon".Discover, May 1987. Others called it "New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
drivel masquerading as science".Ecology, 73(2), 1992, p.713 The Institute for Ecotechnics, which awarded Margret Augustine and other Biospherians their science credentials, was shown by a CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
documentary to be nothing more than an art gallery and café in London.Ibid. John Allen and Roy Walford did have mainstream credentials. John Allen held a degree in Metallurgical-Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.Ibid. Roy Walford received his doctorate of medicine from the University of Chicago and taught at UCLA as a Professor of Pathology for 25 years.
Further damaging the credentials of the participants, Marc Cooper wroteCooper, Marc. "Take This Terrarium and Shove It", Village Voice, 1991. that "the group that built, conceived, and directs the Biosphere project is not a group of high-tech researchers on the cutting edge of science but a clique of recycled theater performers that evolved out of an authoritarian – and decidedly non-scientific – personality cult". He was referring to the Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch is an ecovillage founded in 1969 by John P. Allen, the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2.-External Links:** by Rebecca Reider, ISBN 978-0826346735...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, an outpost of the Institute of Ecotechnics where indeed many of the Biospherians did practice improv theater under John Allen's leadership, and began to develop the ideas behind Biosphere 2.Poynter, pp. 17–20 However, the original Biosphere 2 Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Tom Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, in the report of August 1992 reported: "The committee is in agreement that the conception and construction of Biosphere 2 were acts of vision and courage. The scale of Biosphere 2 is unique and Biosphere 2 is already providing unexpected scientific results not possible through other means (notably the documented, unexpected decline in atmospheric oxygen levels.) Biosphere 2 will make important scientific contributions in the fields of biogeochemical cycling, the ecology of closed ecological systems, and restoration ecology." Furthermore, Columbia University assembled outside scientists to evaluate the potential of the facility, and concluded: "A group of world-class scientists got together and decided the Biosphere 2 facility is an exceptional laboratory for addressing critical questions relative to the future of Earth and its environment." Dr. Michael Crow,Vice-Provost of Columbia University, Press Release December 20, 1994.
One of their own scientific consultants came to be critical of the enterprise, too. Dr. Ghillean Prance
Ghillean Prance
Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance FRS VMH is a prominent British botanist and ecologist.He has published extensively on the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but he perhaps drew more attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica...
, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
in Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
, designed the rainforest biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
inside the Biosphere. In a 1983 interview, Prance said, "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system.".Phoenix New Times, June 19, 1991. After this statement however he initiated a renewed collaboration with Biosphere 2 and became a consultant from 1987 to 1993.
Psychology and conflict
Much of the evidence for isolated human groups comes from psychological studies of scientists overwintering in AntarcticAntarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
research stations.Science Notes 2000 - Only the Lonely The study of this phenomenon is "confined environment psychology", and according to Jane PoynterPoynter, op. cit.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPK05evoFHw&mode=relatedYouTube - Biosphere 2 crewmember & author Jane Poynter interview
Closed ecological system
Closed ecological systems are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.The term is most often used to describe small manmade ecosystems...
in Oracle
Oracle, Arizona
- Geology :Oracle and the surrounding area sit largely on a slab of granite called "Oracle granite" that is visible as red or grey-and-white speckled "boulders" rising over the scrub and grass. It is mostly porphyritic biotite Precambrian granite with large microcline phenocrysts, and has...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen
John P. Allen
John Polk Allen is a systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology, and was the founder of Synergia Ranch...
, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
s and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature."Using a closed ecological system to study Earth's biosphere: Initial results from Biosphere 2." Bioscience 43(4): 225-236 It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
, Biosphere 1. Earth's life system is the only biosphere currently known. Funding for the project came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass' Decisions Investment, and cost $200 million from 1985 to 2007, including land, support research greenhouses, test module and staff facilities.
Biosphere 2
With a size comparable to two and a half football fields, it remains the largest closed system ever created. The glass facility is elevated nearly 4,000 feet above sea level at the base of the Santa Catalina MountainsSanta Catalina Mountains
The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains, are located north, and northeast of Tucson, Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter. The mountain range is the most prominent in the Tucson area, with the highest average elevation...
, about a half hour outside of Tucson.Specials The sealed nature of the structure allowed scientists to monitor the continually changing chemistry of the air, water and soil contained within. Health of the human crew was monitored by a medical doctor inside and an outside medical team.
Biosphere 2 contained representative biomes: a 1,900 square meter rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
, an 850 square meter ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
with a coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
, a 450 square meter mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
wetlands, a 1,300 square meter savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
grassland, a 1,400 square meter fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
, a 2,500 square meter agricultural system, a human habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
, and a below-ground level technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame
Space frame
A space frame or space structure is a truss-like, lightweight rigid structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports...
panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations.
Biosphere 2 had two closure experiments, Missions 1 and 2. The first, with a crew of eight people, ran for two years from 1991 to 1993. Following a six month transition period during which researchers entered the facility through airlock doors and conducted research and system engineering improvements, a second closure with a crew of seven people was conducted March 1994-September 1994. In the course of that second mission, a dispute over management of the financial aspects of the project caused the on-site management to be locked out, and the mission itself to be ended prematurely.
In 1995, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
took over management of the facility for research and as a campus until 2003. In 1996, they changed the virtually airtight, materially-closed structure designed for closed system research, to a "flow-through" system, and halted closed system research. They manipulated carbon dioxide levels for global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
research, and injected desired amounts of carbon dioxide, venting as needed.Marino, B.D.V., and H.T. Odum, Biosphere 2, Introduction and research progress, Ecological Engineering, 13, 3-14, 1999
By 2006, the property, which is in exurban
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...
Tucson, was slated to be redeveloped for a planned community. As of June 5, 2007, the property including surrounding land, totaling 1650 acres (6.7 km²), had been sold to a residential home developer for US$500 million. A development including homes and a resort hotel was planned for a portion of the land. The Biosphere itself remained open for tours.
On June 26, 2007, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced it would take over research at the Biosphere 2. The announcement ended immediate fears that the famous glass vivarium
Vivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
would be demolished. University officials said private gifts and grants enabled them to cover research and operating costs for three years with the possibility of extending that funding for 10 years. It has in fact been extended for ten years, and is engaged in multi-year research projects including research into the water use of various Arizona grass species. In June 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1.
Pilot experiments
Prior to closure of Biosphere 2, initial tests were carried out in a smaller, 480 cubic meter onsite facility (the "Test Module"), looking at potable water generation, atmospheric sealing, atmospheric expansion and contraction, and the behavior of life systems inside a closed ecological system. Three closures with one human inhabitant were carried out. This allowed advance modeling of Biosphere 2's ability to maintain carbon dioxide at acceptable levels.Alling, A., M. Nelson, L. Leigh, R. Frye, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum, and J. Allen). 1993. "Experiments on the Closed Ecological System in the Biosphere 2 Test Module." Ecological Microcosms. Springer-Verlag, New York by H.T. Odum and R. Beyers. Pp. 463-479 The notable precedent to this closed life system research had been conducted in the 1970s by the Soviet team at Bios 3.Sue Allen spent three days in the Test Module, then Abigail Alling spent five days, then finally Linda Leigh stayed three weeks. They recycled water including human waste, maintained a healthy atmosphere and tended a small agricultural area. Greenhouses at the site and Environmental Research Laboratory of the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
tested potential food cultivars and allowed the crew ("biospherians") in training to practice growing the full range of crops and raise domestic animals (chickens, goats, pigs).Frye. R. and C. Hodges. 1990. Soil Bed Reactor Research of the Environmental Research Laboratory in Support of Research and Development of Biosphere 2. Biological Life Support Technologies: Commercial Opportunities. Synergetic Press/NASA Conf. Publication #3094
The agricultural area of Biosphere 2 was planted over a year before closure, and biospherians managed their farm, growing and processing food, so that there would be a supply of food grown inside when the full closure began. During week-long periods of simulated full closure, data was gathered on agricultural operations and productivity, and crew adapted to their workload.
These mini-missions were, of course, far too short to attempt any meaningful agriculture or animal husbandry. No data was gathered that might have been useful in estimating whether the Biosphere itself was capable of sustaining eight people for two years.
First mission
The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were: medical doctor and researcher Roy WalfordRoy Walford
Roy Lee Walford, M. D. was a pioneer in the field of caloric restriction. He died at age 79 of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...
, Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter is an author, businesswoman and environmentalist. Poynter was one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. Along with seven other individuals, Poynter was confined to the sealed environment for two years....
, Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum is one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. As one of the eight participants of the two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system, MacCallum served as the team's analytical chemist....
, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling (a late replacement for Silke Schneider), Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh.
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. Silverstone, S. and M. Nelson. 1996. "Food Production and Nutrition in Biosphere 2: Results from the First Mission September 1991 to September 1993." Adv. Space Res. Vol. 18, No. 4/5 pp. 49-61 No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants reported continual hunger. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.
They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet which Roy Walford had extensively studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet.
Walford, R., Mock D, Verdery R, MacCallum T. 2002. "Calorie Restriction in Biosphere 2 Alterations in Physiologic, Hematologic, Hormonal, and
Biochemical Parameters in Humans Restricted for a 2-Year Period". The Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Volume 57, Issue 6, Pp. B211-B224. Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. Strikingly, they showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year.Walford, R.L., S.B. Harris, and M.W. Gunion. 1992. Calorically restricted low-fat nutrient-dense diet in Biosphere 2 significantly lowers blood glucose, total leukocyte count, cholesterol, and blood pressure in humans. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences, USA, V. 89, n. 23: 11533-11537 Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.Christian Weyer, Roy L Walford, Inge T Harper, Mike Milner, Taber MacCallum, P Antonio Tataranni and Eric Ravussin, Energy metabolism after 2 y of energy restriction: the Biosphere 2 experiment, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 72, No. 4, 946-953, October 2000
Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat from the plateau region of Nigeria, 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl or gallus gallus, Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these), two sows and one boar pig (feral), as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.
A strategy of "species-packing" was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
area became more chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...
due to condensation from the space frame. The savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest pioneer species
Pioneer species
Pioneer species are species which colonize previously uncolonized land, usually leading to ecological succession. They are the first organisms to start the chain of events leading to a livable biosphere or ecosystem...
grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from etiolation
Etiolation
Etiolation is a process in flowering plants grown in partial or complete absence of light. It is characterized by long, weak stems; smaller, sparser leaves due to longer internodes; and a pale yellow color . It increases the likelihood that a plant will reach a light source, often from under the...
and weakness caused by lack of stress wood
Reaction wood
Reaction wood forms when part of a woody plant is subjected to mechanical stress, and helps to bring parts of the plant into an optimal position. This stress may be the result of gravity, wind exposure, snow buildup, soil movement, etc. The reaction wood is not externally visible, although...
, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too acidic, and by installing an improved protein skimmer
Protein skimmer
A protein skimmer or foam fractionator is a device used mostly in saltwater aquaria to remove organic compounds from the water before they break down into nitrogenous waste...
to supplement the algae turf scrubber system originally installed to remove excess nutrients.Nelson, M. and W. Dempster. 1996. "Living in Space: Results from Biosphere 2's Initial Closure, an Early Testbed for Closed Ecological Systems on Mars." American Astronautical Society: Science & Technology Series. Vol. 86, pp.363-390. AAS 95-488 The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
possibly because of reduced light levels.Finn, M. 1996. Comparison of mangrove forest structure and function in a mesocosm and Florida. Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington D.C
Biosphere 2 suffered from CO2 levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the pollinating insects died.college-level textbook Biology by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece Insect pests, like cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es, boomed. In practice, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s, a companion to one of the tree species (Cecropia
Cecropia
Cecropia is a Neotropical genus presently consisting of sixty-one recognized species with a highly distinctive lineage of dioecious trees....
) in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species Paratrechina longicornis
Paratrechina
Paratrechina is an ant genus from the subfamily Formicinae .There are over 150 described species and subspecies, some of which occur on every continent...
, local to the area had been unintentionally sealed in and had come to dominate. Galagos reproduced in Biosphere 2, but a number of pollinating insects were lost to ant predation and several bird species were lost. However, many of the pollinating duties were performed by those ants and cockroaches.
Oxygen
During the first mission, the oxygenOxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
inside the facility, which began at 20.9%, fell at a steady pace and after 16 months was down to 14.5%. This is equivalent to the oxygen availability at an elevation of 4,080 meters (13,400 ft). Since some biospherians were starting to have symptoms like sleep apnea
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last from a few seconds to minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Similarly, each abnormally low...
and fatigue, Walford and the medical team decided to boost oxygen with injections in January and August 1993.
Daily fluctuation of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
dynamics was typically 600 ppm because of the strong drawdown during sunlight hours by plant photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
, followed by a similar rise during the nighttime when system respiration
Respiration (physiology)
'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
dominated. As expected, there was also a strong seasonal signature to CO2 levels, with wintertime levels as high as 4,000-4,500 and summertime levels near 1,000 ppm. The crew worked to manage the CO2 by occasionally turning on a CO2 scrubber, activating and de-activating the desert and savannah through control of irrigation water, cutting and storing biomass to sequester carbon, and utilizing all potential planting areas with fast-growing species to increase system photosynthesis.Nelson, M, W. F. Dempster, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum. 1994, Atmospheric Dynamics and bioregenerative technologies in a soil-based ecological life support system: Initial results from Biosphere 2. Advances in Space Research14 (11):417-426)
Many suspected the drop in oxygen was due to microbes
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
in the soil. The soils were selected to have enough carbon to provide for the plants of the ecosystems to grow from infancy to maturity, a plant mass increase of perhaps 20 tons (18,000 kg).Nelson and Dempster, 1996, op cit. The release rate of that soil carbon as carbon dioxide by respiration of soil microbes was an unknown that the Biosphere 2 experiment was designed to reveal. El Nino
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years...
weather systems blocked necessary sunlight resulting in lower oxygen production.
The respiration rate was faster than the photosynthesis (possibly in part due to relatively low light penetration through the glazed structure) resulting in a slow decrease of oxygen. A mystery accompanied the oxygen decline: the corresponding increase in carbon dioxide did not appear. This concealed the underlying process until an investigation by Jeff Severinghaus and Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory using isotopic analysis showed that carbon dioxide was reacting with exposed concrete inside Biosphere 2 to form calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...
, thereby sequestering the carbon dioxide and, as part of it, the oxygen that had disappeared.Severinghaus, J.P. , W. Broecker, W. Dempster, T. MacCallum, and M. Wahlen. 1994. Oxygen Loss in Biosphere 2. EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 33, 35-37
The discovery of the small difference between rate of respiration and rate of photosynthesis depended on the extremely low leak rate of Biosphere 2. It was shown by Dempster that had Biosphere 2 leaked as much as other closed ecological test chambers, the wash-out effect of outside air mixing in would have concealed the entire imbalance.
Second mission
During the transition period between missions, extensive research and system improvements had been undertaken. Concrete was sealed to prevent uptake of carbon dioxide. The second mission began on March 6, 1994, with an announced run of ten months. Crew was Norberto Romo (Capt.), John Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascale Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey, Rodrigo Romo and Tilak Mahato. The second crew achieved complete sufficiency in food production.Marino, B.D.V., Mahato, T.R. et al., 1999, The agricultural biome of Biosphere 2: structure, composition and function, Ecological Engineering 13: 199-234On April 1, 1994 a severe disputeand utter mismanagement the project was put into receivership and an outside management turnaround team was installed for the receiver to turnaround the floundering project. The reason for the dispute was three fold. Mismanagement of mission had caused terrible publicity, finacial mismanagement and lack of research. People alleged gross financial mis-management of the project, leading to a loss of $25 million in fiscal 1992 -Poynter, pp325-6 within the management team led to the ousting of the on-site management by federal marshals
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
serving a restraining order,Poynter, pp. 324–6 leaving management of the mission to the Bannon & Co.team from Beverly Hills California.
At 3 am on April 5, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo, members of the first crew, deliberately vandalized the project from outside, opening a door and violating the closure.
Soon after that, the captain Norberto Romo (by then married to Margret Augustine) left the Biosphere. He was replaced by Bernd Zabel, who had been nominated as captain of the first mission but replaced at the last minute. Two months later, Matt Smith replaced Matt Finn.
The ownership and management company Space Biospheres Ventures was officially dissolved on June 1, 1994, leaving scientific and business management of the mission to the interim turnaround team under contracted by the financial partner, Decisions Investment Co .
Mission 2 was ended prematurely on September 6, 1994.
Columbia University
After a successful turnaround by Bannon & Co. in December of 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
of New York city which emabarked on a successful eight year run at the Biopshere 2 campus. Columbia ran Biosphere 2 as a research site and campus until 2003, at which time management reverted to the owners. During Columbia's tenure, Columbia students would often spend one semester at the site.
Site sold
On January 10, 2005 Decisions Investments Corporation, owner of Biosphere 2, announced that the Biosphere 2 1,600 acre campus was for sale. They preferred a research use to be found for the complex but were not excluding buyers with different intentions, such as universities, hotels, resorts, spas, etc. In June, 2007 Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
announced a $50 million sale to CDO Ranching & Development, L.P. 1,500 houses and a resort hotel were planned, but the main structure was still to be available for research and educational use.
Under new management
On June 26, 2007, the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced that it took over management of Biosphere 2, using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things.
Acquisition by University of Arizona
On June 27, 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1. CDO Ranching & Development donated the land, Biosphere buildings and several other support and administrative buildings. The Philecology Foundation (a nonprofit research foundation founded by Ed Bass) pledged $20 million for the ongoing science and operations.Engineering
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, Peter Pearce (Pearce Structures, Inc.). The window seals and structures had to be designed to be almost perfectly airtight, such that the air exchange would be extremely slow, to avoid damage to the experimental results.
The structure was notable for how it dealt with atmospheric expansion. During the day, the heat from the sun caused the air inside to expand and during the night it cooled and contracted. To avoid having to deal with the huge forces that maintaining a constant volume would create, the structure had large diaphragms kept in domes called "lungs".
Since opening a window was impossible, the structure also required huge air conditioners to control the temperature and avoid killing the plants within. For every unit of solar energy that entered the structure, the air conditioners would expend approximately three times as much energy to cool the habitat back down.
Science
A special issue of the Ecological Engineering journal edited by B.D.V. Marino and Howard T. Odum (1999), published as "Biosphere 2: Research Past and Present" (Elsevier, 1999) represents the most comprehensive assemblage of collected papers and findings from Biosphere 2. The papers range from calibrated models that describe the system metabolism, hydrologic balance, and heat and humidity, to papers that describe rainforest, mangrove, ocean, and agronomic system development in this carbon dioxide-rich environment.For a complete list of Biosphere 2 scientific papers and publications see http://biospheres.com/publications.html.For research projects and consultants during the first closure experiment: http://biospheres.com/resbio2jntstudy1.htmlEvaluation
One view of Biosphere 2 was that it was "the most exciting scientific project to be undertaken in the U.S. since President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
launched us toward the moon".Discover, May 1987. Others called it "New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
drivel masquerading as science".Ecology, 73(2), 1992, p.713 The Institute for Ecotechnics, which awarded Margret Augustine and other Biospherians their science credentials, was shown by a CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
documentary to be nothing more than an art gallery and café in London.Ibid. John Allen and Roy Walford did have mainstream credentials. John Allen held a degree in Metallurgical-Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.Ibid. Roy Walford received his doctorate of medicine from the University of Chicago and taught at UCLA as a Professor of Pathology for 25 years.
Further damaging the credentials of the participants, Marc Cooper wroteCooper, Marc. "Take This Terrarium and Shove It", Village Voice, 1991. that "the group that built, conceived, and directs the Biosphere project is not a group of high-tech researchers on the cutting edge of science but a clique of recycled theater performers that evolved out of an authoritarian – and decidedly non-scientific – personality cult". He was referring to the Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch is an ecovillage founded in 1969 by John P. Allen, the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2.-External Links:** by Rebecca Reider, ISBN 978-0826346735...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, an outpost of the Institute of Ecotechnics where indeed many of the Biospherians did practice improv theater under John Allen's leadership, and began to develop the ideas behind Biosphere 2.Poynter, pp. 17–20 However, the original Biosphere 2 Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Tom Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, in the report of August 1992 reported: "The committee is in agreement that the conception and construction of Biosphere 2 were acts of vision and courage. The scale of Biosphere 2 is unique and Biosphere 2 is already providing unexpected scientific results not possible through other means (notably the documented, unexpected decline in atmospheric oxygen levels.) Biosphere 2 will make important scientific contributions in the fields of biogeochemical cycling, the ecology of closed ecological systems, and restoration ecology." Furthermore, Columbia University assembled outside scientists to evaluate the potential of the facility, and concluded: "A group of world-class scientists got together and decided the Biosphere 2 facility is an exceptional laboratory for addressing critical questions relative to the future of Earth and its environment." Dr. Michael Crow,Vice-Provost of Columbia University, Press Release December 20, 1994.
One of their own scientific consultants came to be critical of the enterprise, too. Dr. Ghillean Prance
Ghillean Prance
Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance FRS VMH is a prominent British botanist and ecologist.He has published extensively on the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but he perhaps drew more attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica...
, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
in Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
, designed the rainforest biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
inside the Biosphere. In a 1983 interview, Prance said, "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system.".Phoenix New Times, June 19, 1991. After this statement however he initiated a renewed collaboration with Biosphere 2 and became a consultant from 1987 to 1993.
Psychology and conflict
Much of the evidence for isolated human groups comes from psychological studies of scientists overwintering in AntarcticAntarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
research stations.Science Notes 2000 - Only the Lonely The study of this phenomenon is "confined environment psychology", and according to Jane PoynterPoynter, op. cit.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPK05evoFHw&mode=relatedYouTube - Biosphere 2 crewmember & author Jane Poynter interview
Closed ecological system
Closed ecological systems are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.The term is most often used to describe small manmade ecosystems...
in Oracle
Oracle, Arizona
- Geology :Oracle and the surrounding area sit largely on a slab of granite called "Oracle granite" that is visible as red or grey-and-white speckled "boulders" rising over the scrub and grass. It is mostly porphyritic biotite Precambrian granite with large microcline phenocrysts, and has...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen
John P. Allen
John Polk Allen is a systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology, and was the founder of Synergia Ranch...
, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
s and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature."Using a closed ecological system to study Earth's biosphere: Initial results from Biosphere 2." Bioscience 43(4): 225-236 It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
, Biosphere 1. Earth's life system is the only biosphere currently known. Funding for the project came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass' Decisions Investment, and cost $200 million from 1985 to 2007, including land, support research greenhouses, test module and staff facilities.
Biosphere 2
With a size comparable to two and a half football fields, it remains the largest closed system ever created. The glass facility is elevated nearly 4,000 feet above sea level at the base of the Santa Catalina MountainsSanta Catalina Mountains
The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains, are located north, and northeast of Tucson, Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter. The mountain range is the most prominent in the Tucson area, with the highest average elevation...
, about a half hour outside of Tucson.Specials The sealed nature of the structure allowed scientists to monitor the continually changing chemistry of the air, water and soil contained within. Health of the human crew was monitored by a medical doctor inside and an outside medical team.
Biosphere 2 contained representative biomes: a 1,900 square meter rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
, an 850 square meter ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
with a coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
, a 450 square meter mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
wetlands, a 1,300 square meter savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
grassland, a 1,400 square meter fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
, a 2,500 square meter agricultural system, a human habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
, and a below-ground level technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame
Space frame
A space frame or space structure is a truss-like, lightweight rigid structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports...
panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations.
Biosphere 2 had two closure experiments, Missions 1 and 2. The first, with a crew of eight people, ran for two years from 1991 to 1993. Following a six month transition period during which researchers entered the facility through airlock doors and conducted research and system engineering improvements, a second closure with a crew of seven people was conducted March 1994-September 1994. In the course of that second mission, a dispute over management of the financial aspects of the project caused the on-site management to be locked out, and the mission itself to be ended prematurely.
In 1995, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
took over management of the facility for research and as a campus until 2003. In 1996, they changed the virtually airtight, materially-closed structure designed for closed system research, to a "flow-through" system, and halted closed system research. They manipulated carbon dioxide levels for global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
research, and injected desired amounts of carbon dioxide, venting as needed.Marino, B.D.V., and H.T. Odum, Biosphere 2, Introduction and research progress, Ecological Engineering, 13, 3-14, 1999
By 2006, the property, which is in exurban
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...
Tucson, was slated to be redeveloped for a planned community. As of June 5, 2007, the property including surrounding land, totaling 1650 acres (6.7 km²), had been sold to a residential home developer for US$500 million. A development including homes and a resort hotel was planned for a portion of the land. The Biosphere itself remained open for tours.
On June 26, 2007, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced it would take over research at the Biosphere 2. The announcement ended immediate fears that the famous glass vivarium
Vivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
would be demolished. University officials said private gifts and grants enabled them to cover research and operating costs for three years with the possibility of extending that funding for 10 years. It has in fact been extended for ten years, and is engaged in multi-year research projects including research into the water use of various Arizona grass species. In June 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1.
Pilot experiments
Prior to closure of Biosphere 2, initial tests were carried out in a smaller, 480 cubic meter onsite facility (the "Test Module"), looking at potable water generation, atmospheric sealing, atmospheric expansion and contraction, and the behavior of life systems inside a closed ecological system. Three closures with one human inhabitant were carried out. This allowed advance modeling of Biosphere 2's ability to maintain carbon dioxide at acceptable levels.Alling, A., M. Nelson, L. Leigh, R. Frye, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum, and J. Allen). 1993. "Experiments on the Closed Ecological System in the Biosphere 2 Test Module." Ecological Microcosms. Springer-Verlag, New York by H.T. Odum and R. Beyers. Pp. 463-479 The notable precedent to this closed life system research had been conducted in the 1970s by the Soviet team at Bios 3.Sue Allen spent three days in the Test Module, then Abigail Alling spent five days, then finally Linda Leigh stayed three weeks. They recycled water including human waste, maintained a healthy atmosphere and tended a small agricultural area. Greenhouses at the site and Environmental Research Laboratory of the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
tested potential food cultivars and allowed the crew ("biospherians") in training to practice growing the full range of crops and raise domestic animals (chickens, goats, pigs).Frye. R. and C. Hodges. 1990. Soil Bed Reactor Research of the Environmental Research Laboratory in Support of Research and Development of Biosphere 2. Biological Life Support Technologies: Commercial Opportunities. Synergetic Press/NASA Conf. Publication #3094
The agricultural area of Biosphere 2 was planted over a year before closure, and biospherians managed their farm, growing and processing food, so that there would be a supply of food grown inside when the full closure began. During week-long periods of simulated full closure, data was gathered on agricultural operations and productivity, and crew adapted to their workload.
These mini-missions were, of course, far too short to attempt any meaningful agriculture or animal husbandry. No data was gathered that might have been useful in estimating whether the Biosphere itself was capable of sustaining eight people for two years.
First mission
The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were: medical doctor and researcher Roy WalfordRoy Walford
Roy Lee Walford, M. D. was a pioneer in the field of caloric restriction. He died at age 79 of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...
, Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter
Jane Poynter is an author, businesswoman and environmentalist. Poynter was one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. Along with seven other individuals, Poynter was confined to the sealed environment for two years....
, Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum is one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. As one of the eight participants of the two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system, MacCallum served as the team's analytical chemist....
, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling (a late replacement for Silke Schneider), Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh.
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. Silverstone, S. and M. Nelson. 1996. "Food Production and Nutrition in Biosphere 2: Results from the First Mission September 1991 to September 1993." Adv. Space Res. Vol. 18, No. 4/5 pp. 49-61 No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants reported continual hunger. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.
They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet which Roy Walford had extensively studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet.
Walford, R., Mock D, Verdery R, MacCallum T. 2002. "Calorie Restriction in Biosphere 2 Alterations in Physiologic, Hematologic, Hormonal, and
Biochemical Parameters in Humans Restricted for a 2-Year Period". The Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Volume 57, Issue 6, Pp. B211-B224. Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. Strikingly, they showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year.Walford, R.L., S.B. Harris, and M.W. Gunion. 1992. Calorically restricted low-fat nutrient-dense diet in Biosphere 2 significantly lowers blood glucose, total leukocyte count, cholesterol, and blood pressure in humans. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences, USA, V. 89, n. 23: 11533-11537 Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.Christian Weyer, Roy L Walford, Inge T Harper, Mike Milner, Taber MacCallum, P Antonio Tataranni and Eric Ravussin, Energy metabolism after 2 y of energy restriction: the Biosphere 2 experiment, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 72, No. 4, 946-953, October 2000
Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat from the plateau region of Nigeria, 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl or gallus gallus, Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these), two sows and one boar pig (feral), as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.
A strategy of "species-packing" was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The fog desert
Fog desert
A fog desert is a type of desert where fog supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life.Examples of fog deserts include the Atacama Desert of coastal Chile and Peru, the Baja California Desert of Mexico, the Namib Desert in Namibia, the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert,and...
area became more chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...
due to condensation from the space frame. The savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest pioneer species
Pioneer species
Pioneer species are species which colonize previously uncolonized land, usually leading to ecological succession. They are the first organisms to start the chain of events leading to a livable biosphere or ecosystem...
grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from etiolation
Etiolation
Etiolation is a process in flowering plants grown in partial or complete absence of light. It is characterized by long, weak stems; smaller, sparser leaves due to longer internodes; and a pale yellow color . It increases the likelihood that a plant will reach a light source, often from under the...
and weakness caused by lack of stress wood
Reaction wood
Reaction wood forms when part of a woody plant is subjected to mechanical stress, and helps to bring parts of the plant into an optimal position. This stress may be the result of gravity, wind exposure, snow buildup, soil movement, etc. The reaction wood is not externally visible, although...
, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too acidic, and by installing an improved protein skimmer
Protein skimmer
A protein skimmer or foam fractionator is a device used mostly in saltwater aquaria to remove organic compounds from the water before they break down into nitrogenous waste...
to supplement the algae turf scrubber system originally installed to remove excess nutrients.Nelson, M. and W. Dempster. 1996. "Living in Space: Results from Biosphere 2's Initial Closure, an Early Testbed for Closed Ecological Systems on Mars." American Astronautical Society: Science & Technology Series. Vol. 86, pp.363-390. AAS 95-488 The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
possibly because of reduced light levels.Finn, M. 1996. Comparison of mangrove forest structure and function in a mesocosm and Florida. Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington D.C
Biosphere 2 suffered from CO2 levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the pollinating insects died.college-level textbook Biology by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece Insect pests, like cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es, boomed. In practice, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s, a companion to one of the tree species (Cecropia
Cecropia
Cecropia is a Neotropical genus presently consisting of sixty-one recognized species with a highly distinctive lineage of dioecious trees....
) in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species Paratrechina longicornis
Paratrechina
Paratrechina is an ant genus from the subfamily Formicinae .There are over 150 described species and subspecies, some of which occur on every continent...
, local to the area had been unintentionally sealed in and had come to dominate. Galagos reproduced in Biosphere 2, but a number of pollinating insects were lost to ant predation and several bird species were lost. However, many of the pollinating duties were performed by those ants and cockroaches.
Oxygen
During the first mission, the oxygenOxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
inside the facility, which began at 20.9%, fell at a steady pace and after 16 months was down to 14.5%. This is equivalent to the oxygen availability at an elevation of 4,080 meters (13,400 ft). Since some biospherians were starting to have symptoms like sleep apnea
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last from a few seconds to minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Similarly, each abnormally low...
and fatigue, Walford and the medical team decided to boost oxygen with injections in January and August 1993.
Daily fluctuation of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
dynamics was typically 600 ppm because of the strong drawdown during sunlight hours by plant photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
, followed by a similar rise during the nighttime when system respiration
Respiration (physiology)
'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
dominated. As expected, there was also a strong seasonal signature to CO2 levels, with wintertime levels as high as 4,000-4,500 and summertime levels near 1,000 ppm. The crew worked to manage the CO2 by occasionally turning on a CO2 scrubber, activating and de-activating the desert and savannah through control of irrigation water, cutting and storing biomass to sequester carbon, and utilizing all potential planting areas with fast-growing species to increase system photosynthesis.Nelson, M, W. F. Dempster, N. Alvarez-Romo, T. MacCallum. 1994, Atmospheric Dynamics and bioregenerative technologies in a soil-based ecological life support system: Initial results from Biosphere 2. Advances in Space Research14 (11):417-426)
Many suspected the drop in oxygen was due to microbes
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
in the soil. The soils were selected to have enough carbon to provide for the plants of the ecosystems to grow from infancy to maturity, a plant mass increase of perhaps 20 tons (18,000 kg).Nelson and Dempster, 1996, op cit. The release rate of that soil carbon as carbon dioxide by respiration of soil microbes was an unknown that the Biosphere 2 experiment was designed to reveal. El Nino
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years...
weather systems blocked necessary sunlight resulting in lower oxygen production.
The respiration rate was faster than the photosynthesis (possibly in part due to relatively low light penetration through the glazed structure) resulting in a slow decrease of oxygen. A mystery accompanied the oxygen decline: the corresponding increase in carbon dioxide did not appear. This concealed the underlying process until an investigation by Jeff Severinghaus and Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory using isotopic analysis showed that carbon dioxide was reacting with exposed concrete inside Biosphere 2 to form calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...
, thereby sequestering the carbon dioxide and, as part of it, the oxygen that had disappeared.Severinghaus, J.P. , W. Broecker, W. Dempster, T. MacCallum, and M. Wahlen. 1994. Oxygen Loss in Biosphere 2. EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 33, 35-37
The discovery of the small difference between rate of respiration and rate of photosynthesis depended on the extremely low leak rate of Biosphere 2. It was shown by Dempster that had Biosphere 2 leaked as much as other closed ecological test chambers, the wash-out effect of outside air mixing in would have concealed the entire imbalance.
Second mission
During the transition period between missions, extensive research and system improvements had been undertaken. Concrete was sealed to prevent uptake of carbon dioxide. The second mission began on March 6, 1994, with an announced run of ten months. Crew was Norberto Romo (Capt.), John Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascale Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey, Rodrigo Romo and Tilak Mahato. The second crew achieved complete sufficiency in food production.Marino, B.D.V., Mahato, T.R. et al., 1999, The agricultural biome of Biosphere 2: structure, composition and function, Ecological Engineering 13: 199-234On April 1, 1994 a severe disputeand utter mismanagement the project was put into receivership and an outside management turnaround team was installed for the receiver to turnaround the floundering project. The reason for the dispute was three fold. Mismanagement of mission had caused terrible publicity, finacial mismanagement and lack of research. People alleged gross financial mis-management of the project, leading to a loss of $25 million in fiscal 1992 -Poynter, pp325-6 within the management team led to the ousting of the on-site management by federal marshals
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
serving a restraining order,Poynter, pp. 324–6 leaving management of the mission to the Bannon & Co.team from Beverly Hills California.
At 3 am on April 5, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo, members of the first crew, deliberately vandalized the project from outside, opening a door and violating the closure.
Soon after that, the captain Norberto Romo (by then married to Margret Augustine) left the Biosphere. He was replaced by Bernd Zabel, who had been nominated as captain of the first mission but replaced at the last minute. Two months later, Matt Smith replaced Matt Finn.
The ownership and management company Space Biospheres Ventures was officially dissolved on June 1, 1994, leaving scientific and business management of the mission to the interim turnaround team under contracted by the financial partner, Decisions Investment Co .
Mission 2 was ended prematurely on September 6, 1994.
Columbia University
After a successful turnaround by Bannon & Co. in December of 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
of New York city which emabarked on a successful eight year run at the Biopshere 2 campus. Columbia ran Biosphere 2 as a research site and campus until 2003, at which time management reverted to the owners. During Columbia's tenure, Columbia students would often spend one semester at the site.
Site sold
On January 10, 2005 Decisions Investments Corporation, owner of Biosphere 2, announced that the Biosphere 2 1,600 acre campus was for sale. They preferred a research use to be found for the complex but were not excluding buyers with different intentions, such as universities, hotels, resorts, spas, etc. In June, 2007 Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
announced a $50 million sale to CDO Ranching & Development, L.P. 1,500 houses and a resort hotel were planned, but the main structure was still to be available for research and educational use.
Under new management
On June 26, 2007, the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
announced that it took over management of Biosphere 2, using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things.
Acquisition by University of Arizona
On June 27, 2011, the University announced that it would assume full ownership of Biosphere 2, effective July 1. CDO Ranching & Development donated the land, Biosphere buildings and several other support and administrative buildings. The Philecology Foundation (a nonprofit research foundation founded by Ed Bass) pledged $20 million for the ongoing science and operations.Engineering
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, Peter Pearce (Pearce Structures, Inc.). The window seals and structures had to be designed to be almost perfectly airtight, such that the air exchange would be extremely slow, to avoid damage to the experimental results.
The structure was notable for how it dealt with atmospheric expansion. During the day, the heat from the sun caused the air inside to expand and during the night it cooled and contracted. To avoid having to deal with the huge forces that maintaining a constant volume would create, the structure had large diaphragms kept in domes called "lungs".
Since opening a window was impossible, the structure also required huge air conditioners to control the temperature and avoid killing the plants within. For every unit of solar energy that entered the structure, the air conditioners would expend approximately three times as much energy to cool the habitat back down.
Science
A special issue of the Ecological Engineering journal edited by B.D.V. Marino and Howard T. Odum (1999), published as "Biosphere 2: Research Past and Present" (Elsevier, 1999) represents the most comprehensive assemblage of collected papers and findings from Biosphere 2. The papers range from calibrated models that describe the system metabolism, hydrologic balance, and heat and humidity, to papers that describe rainforest, mangrove, ocean, and agronomic system development in this carbon dioxide-rich environment.For a complete list of Biosphere 2 scientific papers and publications see http://biospheres.com/publications.html.For research projects and consultants during the first closure experiment: http://biospheres.com/resbio2jntstudy1.htmlEvaluation
One view of Biosphere 2 was that it was "the most exciting scientific project to be undertaken in the U.S. since President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
launched us toward the moon".Discover, May 1987. Others called it "New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
drivel masquerading as science".Ecology, 73(2), 1992, p.713 The Institute for Ecotechnics, which awarded Margret Augustine and other Biospherians their science credentials, was shown by a CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
documentary to be nothing more than an art gallery and café in London.Ibid. John Allen and Roy Walford did have mainstream credentials. John Allen held a degree in Metallurgical-Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.Ibid. Roy Walford received his doctorate of medicine from the University of Chicago and taught at UCLA as a Professor of Pathology for 25 years.
Further damaging the credentials of the participants, Marc Cooper wroteCooper, Marc. "Take This Terrarium and Shove It", Village Voice, 1991. that "the group that built, conceived, and directs the Biosphere project is not a group of high-tech researchers on the cutting edge of science but a clique of recycled theater performers that evolved out of an authoritarian – and decidedly non-scientific – personality cult". He was referring to the Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch
Synergia Ranch is an ecovillage founded in 1969 by John P. Allen, the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2.-External Links:** by Rebecca Reider, ISBN 978-0826346735...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, an outpost of the Institute of Ecotechnics where indeed many of the Biospherians did practice improv theater under John Allen's leadership, and began to develop the ideas behind Biosphere 2.Poynter, pp. 17–20 However, the original Biosphere 2 Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Tom Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, in the report of August 1992 reported: "The committee is in agreement that the conception and construction of Biosphere 2 were acts of vision and courage. The scale of Biosphere 2 is unique and Biosphere 2 is already providing unexpected scientific results not possible through other means (notably the documented, unexpected decline in atmospheric oxygen levels.) Biosphere 2 will make important scientific contributions in the fields of biogeochemical cycling, the ecology of closed ecological systems, and restoration ecology." Furthermore, Columbia University assembled outside scientists to evaluate the potential of the facility, and concluded: "A group of world-class scientists got together and decided the Biosphere 2 facility is an exceptional laboratory for addressing critical questions relative to the future of Earth and its environment." Dr. Michael Crow,Vice-Provost of Columbia University, Press Release December 20, 1994.
One of their own scientific consultants came to be critical of the enterprise, too. Dr. Ghillean Prance
Ghillean Prance
Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance FRS VMH is a prominent British botanist and ecologist.He has published extensively on the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but he perhaps drew more attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica...
, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
in Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
, designed the rainforest biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
inside the Biosphere. In a 1983 interview, Prance said, "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system.".Phoenix New Times, June 19, 1991. After this statement however he initiated a renewed collaboration with Biosphere 2 and became a consultant from 1987 to 1993.
Psychology and conflict
Much of the evidence for isolated human groups comes from psychological studies of scientists overwintering in AntarcticAntarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
research stations.Science Notes 2000 - Only the Lonely The study of this phenomenon is "confined environment psychology", and according to Jane PoynterPoynter, op. cit.YouTube - Biosphere 2 crewmember & author Jane Poynter interview inside the bubble, and who sided with John Allen in blocking that move. On February 14, the entire SAC resigned.Poynter, p. 270 Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
wrote:
Now, the veneer of credibility, already bruised by allegations of tamper-prone data, secret food caches and smuggled supplies, has cracked ... the two-year experiment in self-sufficiency is starting to look less like science and more like a $150 million stunt.Poynter, p. 270, quoting Time Magazine.
Undoubtedly the lack of oxygen and the calorie restricted nutrient dense diet contributed to low morale. The Alling faction feared that the Poynter group were prepared to go so far as to import food, if it meant making them fitter to carry out research projects. They considered that would be a project failure by definition.
In November the hungry Biospherians began eating emergency food supplies that had not been grown inside the bubble.Poynter, p. 247. Poynter made Chris Helms, PR
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
Director for the enterprise, aware of this. She was promptly dismissed by Margret Augustine, CEO of Space Biospheres Ventures, and told to come out of the biosphere. This order was, however, never carried out.
See also
- BIOS-3BIOS-3BIOS-3 is a closed ecosystem at the Institute of Biophysics in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.Its construction began in 1965, and was completed in 1972. BIOS-3 consists of a 315-cubic-metre habitat suitable for up to three persons, and was initially used for developing closed ecosystems capable of supporting...
a closed ecosystem at the Institute of Biophysics in KrasnoyarskKrasnoyarskKrasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...
, SiberiaSiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, in what was then the Soviet UnionSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. - MARS-500MARS-500Mars-500 was an international multi-part isolation experiment simulating a manned flight to Mars. The experiment's facility was located at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, Russia. A total of 640 experiment days were scheduled between 2007 and 2011,...
, ground-based experiment simulating a manned flight to MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. - Eden ProjectEden ProjectThe Eden Project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, including the world's largest greenhouse. Inside the artificial biomes are plants that are collected from all around the world....
- John P. AllenJohn P. AllenJohn Polk Allen is a systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology, and was the founder of Synergia Ranch...
, inventor and Executive Director of Biosphere 2 - Jane PoynterJane PoynterJane Poynter is an author, businesswoman and environmentalist. Poynter was one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. Along with seven other individuals, Poynter was confined to the sealed environment for two years....
, crewmember of first Biosphere 2 enclosure. - Taber MacCallumTaber MacCallumTaber MacCallum is one of the original crewmembers of Biosphere 2. As one of the eight participants of the two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system, MacCallum served as the team's analytical chemist....
, the Biosphere 2 team's analytical chemist. - Roy WalfordRoy WalfordRoy Lee Walford, M. D. was a pioneer in the field of caloric restriction. He died at age 79 of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...
bionaut and anti-aging researcher.
In popular culture
Film- The film Bio-DomeBio-DomeBio-Dome is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Jason Bloom. Bio-Dome was produced by Motion Picture Corporation of America on a budget of $15 million and was distributed theatrically by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer....
(1996) is a parody of Biosphere 2. The exterior shots were filmed on location at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation PlantTillman Water Reclamation PlantThe Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant is a water reclamation plant located in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, Southern California, USA designed by California architect Anthony J Lumsden...
in Van Nuys, California, and the Valencia High School, in Valencia, CaliforniaValencia, CaliforniaValencia is an affluent planned community located in the City of Santa Clarita, California and Los Angeles County, California, U.S. in the northwestern corner of the Santa Clarita Valley, adjacent to Interstate 5. In 1987, it was one of the four unincorporated communities that merged to create the...
, USA.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115683/locations
Music
- The song "Old Black Dawning" by Frank BlackFrank BlackBlack Francis is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black...
is about Biosphere 2. - Musician Geir Jenssen records under the name "Biosphere", after the Biosphere project.www.biosphere.no
Television
- CheersCheersCheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
episode #251, originally broadcast November 12, 1992, features Lillith Sternan-Crane deciding to spend a year in "the ecopod", a parody of the Biosphere. - In an episode of SeinfeldSeinfeldSeinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
, George lies and says that Elaine has been chosen to represent the Upper West Side in the next biosphere project. In another episode, Jerry says about a giant can of tuna, "This isn't for a person, this is for Biosphere 3!" - In an episode of Johnny BravoJohnny BravoJohnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
, four scientists, including Johnny's friend Carl tried to survive for one year in the Biosphere. However, Johnny got in as well, and ruins all the resources. - In episode 56 of the Nickelodeon series Hey Arnold!Hey Arnold!Hey Arnold! is an American animated television series created by Craig Bartlett for Nickelodeon. The show's premise focuses on a fourth grader named Arnold who lives with his grandparents. Episodes center on his experiences navigating big city life while dealing with the problems he and his friends...
, "Bio Square", Arnold and Helga spend a weekend locked in his grandfather's greenhouse, for a school science project similar in concept to Biosphere 2. - "The Buddy System," a third season episode of The Venture Bros.The Venture Bros.The Venture Bros. is an American animated television series that premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on February 16, 2003. The series mixes action and comedy together while it chronicles the adventures of the Venture family: well-meaning but incompetent teenagers Hank and Dean Venture; their...
, parodies the Biosphere by showcasing a similar project called "E-den." Unopened in nearly two decades, the dome contains a densely overgrown jungle and gorillas that sacrifice human beings upside-down on a Saint Andrew's CrossSaint Andrew's Cross (BDSM)The St. Andrew's Cross, Crux decussata, X-cross, X-frame or saltire cross is a common piece of equipment in BDSM dungeons. It typically provides restraining points for ankles, wrists, and waist. When secured to a saltire, the subject is restrained in a standing spreadeagle position.The St...
.
Video games
- The PC adventure and puzzle game BiosysBiosysBiosys is a PC game developed by Jumpstart Interactive and published by Take 2 Interactive.Released in February 1999, it is a point-and-click adventure which follows the protagonist Professor Alan Russell and is set inside the fictional ecological facility Biosphere Four. Russell awakes in what...
(1999) takes place in four different biodomes which simulate 'rainforest', 'savanna', 'ocean', and 'accelerated evolution'. Much of the game revolves around manipulating different environments and discovering the protagonist's own history and involvement with the facility. - Creatures 3Creatures 3Creatures 3 is the third game in the Creatures a-life game series made by Creature Labs. In this installment, the Shee have left Albia in a spaceship, the Shee Ark, to search for a more spherical world...
(1999), a computer game centered on artificial life, took place on a spaceship with several terrariums including a temperate terrarium, jungle terrarium, and desert terrarium.
External links
- Official Website
- Biosphere 2: Our World A film made during 1st Biosphere mission by Mark Van Thillo, one of the crew
- Website on biospherics and Biosphere 2 - Patent for the expanding chambers used to equalize pressure in Biosphere 2.
- Me and the Biospheres website
- Paragon Space Development Corporation, formed with a team of engineers by Biosphere 2 crew-members, while still enclosed.
- Biosphere 2 bubble sold to developers
- Life Under Glass: The Inside Story of Biosphere 2 by Abigail Alling, Mark Nelson and Sally Silverstone, Synergetic Press, 1993
- Biosphere 2 Astronomical Observatory Illustrated history of its founding, operations, closing under Columbia University rule, and disposition with image galleries of its construction in 1999 and removal in 2008.
- Life in Biosphere 2 A talk by Jane Poynter at TED.
- Dreaming the Biosphere by Rebecca Reider, ISBN 978-0826346735
- Sign Posts of Dr. Roy Walford, Voyage of Biosphere 2 by Roy Walford, Chris Rowland
- "A West World of Outreach, Biosphere 2 a Zion for Science" by John de Dios, Tucson Weekly