Biosphere 2 Concepts

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith · 6 Nov 2023 · 490pp · 132,502 words

insanely large structure, and hardest of all, an artificial ecosystem to sustain everyone inside. Can we do this? The biggest such system ever built was Biosphere 2, created in the 1990s, which sustained a total of eight people for two hungry years. Can we realistically scale from eight people to one million

…

accomplished in the 1990s, and never duplicated afterward. This is the strange, but we believe undervalued, tale of Biosphere 2. Biosphere 2: Contrary to Legend, Not an Unmitigated Calamity Earth is “Biosphere 1,” so naturally Biosphere 2 is a 3.14-acre nearly airtight greenhouse in Arizona containing the most complex sealed ecosystem ever created by

…

, but they were at least, let’s say, cult-adjacent. This created issues. Their charismatic leader, John Allen, had space in mind when he designed Biosphere 2, but his training and crew-selection notions weren’t exactly NASA’s. To find the right people, he sent the candidates on a weirdly 1990s

…

seems like a major criterion for selection was “John Allen thinks you’re cool.” Socially, things didn’t go great. Early in their stay in Biosphere 2, the crew of eight began fighting, ultimately splitting into two hateful factions, each consisting of two women and two men. With more than a year

…

eight “biospherians,” recalled a day in which two different members of the opposing faction spat on her, separately, in a sort of coordinated saliva strike. Biosphere 2 had been set up with lessons for a future settlement in space in mind, which apparently stayed on the minds of the participants. As Poynter

…

. But then again, perhaps not. I wondered if people are really meant to be enclosed in small spaces, even as large, beautiful, and varied as Biosphere 2. The human species, after all, did not evolve indoors.” There were also particular reasons why relations broke down, mostly having to do with a dispute

…

the experiment ended, crew member Sally Silverstone published a book of recipes they’d used, called Eating In: From the Field to the Kitchen in Biosphere 2. Opposite page 1 is a photo of the eight “biospherians,” smiling awkwardly on the first anniversary of their stay, each looking substantially more gaunt than

…

and the women about 10 percent. This was despite at one point eating seed intended for future planting. The ecosystem suffered too. The designers of Biosphere 2’s ecology used a technique that may be used in space one day, called “species packing.” The idea is you start with a lot of

…

for subsequent crews. At one point, the crew were mildly poisoning themselves because they had no idea how to cook the taro they were growing. Biosphere 2 was originally intended to do consecutive two-year stints on an ongoing basis, but it was canceled partway through the second round, due to financial

…

, could the whole system have been ported to Mars? Nope. Most important, the structure would have to be changed. On Earth, the air pressure inside Biosphere 2 was relatively close to the pressure outside. Still, the system required two huge “lungs” to make sure the expansion and contraction of the atmosphere due

…

. That’s not great, but then again you’re likely going to heap regolith on your home anyway to deal with radiation and temperature swings. Biosphere 2 would likely also require efficiency improvements to work on Mars. Remember, if you want bread inside the biosphere, you start with seeds planted in the

…

a goatherd and a cheesemaker. Effectively, you’re subsistence farming on a tiny plot of land that sometimes requires technical system maintenance. The result in Biosphere 2 was an average workload of eight to ten hours a day, five and a half days a week. This is despite not doing all the

…

to not-quite-starve. Kelly once talked to a group of researchers who work on closed-loop ecologies and asked them what they thought of Biosphere 2. A common view was that it was cool, but too ambitious. For the cost, which was around $300 million to $400 million in today’s

…

science could’ve been accomplished using a series of small facilities, scaling up as you go. Because we didn’t have such a methodical approach, Biosphere 2 remains a sort of tantalizing proof of concept. It doesn’t prove that we can build ecologies on other worlds, but it strongly winks at

…

just yet. These are the right type of systems to enhance our knowledge of closed-loop ecology, but none are nearly on the scale of Biosphere 2, which itself wasn’t nearly on the scale needed for space settlement. Space Composting! Not as Cool as Space Travel, but Very Important We would

…

them live indefinitely. We don’t have it. In some sense this is the ultimate proof that space agencies are not oriented around space settlement. Biosphere 2 cost around a tenth of a percent of the ISS. People can debate what the point of space stations is, but if they’re part

…

high percentage of all children born on Earth. We can work together. We can do this. The other piece of the puzzle is the ecology. Biosphere 2 nearly showed that you can sustain eight people for two years on about three acres. For the price of today’s International Space Station, about

…

,” BioScience 47 (1997): 575–85. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT “Perhaps on Mars”: Jane Poynter, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 216. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT what bark scorpions: Animal Fact Sheet: Bark Scorpion, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, https

…

40 (2020): 775–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10792-019-01212-7. Allen, John. Me and the Biospheres: A Memoir by the Inventor of Biosphere 2. Santa Fe, NM: Synergetic Press, 2009. Allen, Joseph P., and Russell Martin. Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Odyssey. New York: Stewart Tabori & Chang, 1984. Alshamsi

…

and Biological Systems under Influence of Physical Factors, 34 (2004): 1477–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2003.10.034. Dempster, William F. “Biosphere 2 Engineering Design.” Ecological Engineering 13 (1999): 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0925-8574(98)00090-1. Deudney, Daniel. Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary

…

.nasa.gov/press-release/demonstration-proves-nuclear-fission-system-can-provide-space-exploration-power. Poynter, Jane. The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2. New York: Basic Books, 2006. Preston, Robert, Dana J. Johnson, Sean J. A. Edwards, Michael D. Miller, and Calvin Shipbaugh. “Space Weapons Earth Wars.” RAND

…

24, 2018. https://aif.ru/incidents/ponozhovshchina_v_antarktide_chto_proizoshlo_na_stancii_bellinsgauzen. Silverstone, Sally. Eating In: From the Field to the Kitchen in Biosphere 2. Oracle, AZ: Biosphere Press, 1993. Simonsen, Lisa C., John W. Wilson, Myung H. Kim, and Francis A. Cucinotta. “Radiation Exposure for Human Mars Exploration.” Health

…

, 2, 16–18, 184, 238, 243 biological system, 12, 43, 355 biology, 2, 333–34, 356, 384–86. See also conservation biology biosphere, 2, 17, 34, 154, 171, 336, 385 Biosphere 2, 12, 183–86, 187, 188–89, 190, 191, 385 Blaha, John, 99 Blattman, Chris, 369 Blue Origin, 7, 18, 132, 135 Bogota

…

saving it, 2, 16–17 space “analogs” on, 105–7 space goods sold in, 124–25 Eating In: From the Field to the Kitchen in Biosphere 2 (Silverstone), 185, 190 ecology, 4, 358 closed-loop, 182–91 research needed on, 385–87 saving it, 17, 23–25 See also

…

Biosphere 2 economics, in space advantages of, 2, 4 of asteroids, 159 exporting/selling of, 124–25, 141–42 and the Moon, 14, 141–42, 218, 269–

…

, 306–7 resource exploitation laws of, 250–51 space assets of, 361–62 as world’s sole nuclear power, 224–25 See also Apollo missions; Biosphere 2; International Space Station (ISS); NASA; specific subjects and treaties US Air Force, 14, 362 US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, 264–65 US Congress, 228

…

is a longstanding critical literature with a growing number of recent entries, such as Space Forces by Fred Scharmen and Off-Earth by Erika Nesvold. *Biosphere 2 was about 3.14 acres for eight people. If we scale that to a million people, you’re around 1,600 square kilometers of greenhouse

…

“Eu” is not for Europe, but “Euglena,” for the microorganisms used in the study. *According to Eating In: From the Field to the Kitchen in Biosphere 2, the chickens were a cross between “jungle fowl”—basically the ancestor of chickens, presumably accustomed to tougher fare than chicken feed—and the Silkie breed

…

caused anger from activists, so the “Ossabaw feral swine” was used. They ate chickens and wanted starchy food over scraps. Thus, their final contribution to Biosphere 2 came during Thanksgiving and Christmas 1992. *As an irrelevant but too-weird-to-skip coda, Chris Bannon and his brother Steve Bannon, later director of

Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made

by Vaclav Smil · 2 Mar 2021 · 1,324pp · 159,290 words

we will succeed (at least to a large extent) or if we will largely fail in the most fundamental quest, that of maintaining a habitable biosphere. 2 Populations Demographic transitions have resulted in an epochal shift that was engendered by other major, unprecedented transformations and that has, in turn, brought a variety

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

by Elizabeth Kolbert · 11 Feb 2014 · 308pp · 94,447 words

evidence that CO2 could kill a reef came from Arizona, from the self-enclosed, supposedly self-sufficient world known as Biosphere 2. A three-acre, glassed-in structure shaped like a ziggurat, Biosphere 2 was built in the late nineteen-eighties by a private group largely funded by the billionaire Edward Bass. It was

…

developed what amounted to altitude sickness. Carbon dioxide levels, meanwhile, soared. Eventually, they reached three thousand parts per million, roughly eight times the levels outside. Biosphere 2 officially collapsed in 1995, and Columbia University took over the management of the building. The “ocean,” a tank the size of an Olympic swimming pool

…

. When CO2 dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid—H2CO3—which effectively “eats” carbonate ions, thus lowering the saturation state. When Langdon showed up at Biosphere 2, the prevailing view among marine biologists was that corals did not much care about the saturation state as long as it remained above one. (Below

…

still slower at three. At a level of two, they basically quit building, like frustrated contractors throwing up their hands. In the artificial world of Biosphere 2, the implications of this discovery were interesting. In the real world—Biosphere 1—they were rather more worrisome. Prior to the industrial revolution, all of

Beyond: Our Future in Space

by Chris Impey · 12 Apr 2015 · 370pp · 97,138 words

reality show on steroids. In 1991, eight men and women were sealed into a three-acre glass-and-steel complex in the Arizona desert called Biosphere 2 (Figure 45). Their mission was to live in a self-sustaining environment for two years, as a prototype of how humans might one day live

…

they built an 82-foot sailboat and traveled around the world studying ecosystems and sustainable development. Allen became obsessed with space colonization.2 Figure 45. Biosphere 2 has been owned and operated by the University of Arizona since 2011. It’s located a half hour north of Tucson in the foothills of

…

to be replaced. The second mission ended prematurely after only six months. Two decades later, it’s possible to make a more balanced judgment on Biosphere 2. Anyone reading about it in the popular media would have seen grandiose expectations and hype, followed by damning criticism. The project failed as a prototype

…

for a completely sealed environment, but more than 200 published papers have been based on research done in Biosphere 2.5 It was the largest “closed system” habitat ever built, with five distinct biomes: ocean with coral reef, mangrove wetland, tropical rainforest, savanna grassland, and

…

far beyond our current capabilities that they smack of science fiction.11 A few years ago, British designer Phil Pauley released a proposal for Sub-Biosphere 2, an undersea facility with eight habitats. While he waits for funding, he’s building a rainforest biome in Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, there’s no sign

…

” by L. Marino et al. 2004. The Anatomical Record Part A, vol. 281A, no. 2, pp. 1256–63. 11: Living Off-Earth 1. “Biospherics and Biosphere 2, Mission One” by J. Allen and M. Nelson 1999. Ecological Engineering, vol. 13, pp. 15–29. 2. “Life Under the Bubble” by J. F. Smith

…

.com/2010/oct/20-life-under-the-bubble#.UkvfALNsdOA. 3. Several Biospherians have written about their experience. See Life Under Glass: The Inside Story of Biosphere 2 by A. Alling and M. Nelson 1993. Santa Fe: Synergetic Press; and The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside

…

Biosphere 2 by J. Poynter 2006. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press. After the second failed experiment, the facility was taken over by Columbia University, which hoped

…

-workers-are-accused-of-sabotaging-dome.html. 5. Dreaming the Biosphere by R. Reider 2010. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 6. “Calorie Restriction in Biosphere 2: Alterations in Physiologic, Hematologic, Hormonal, and Biochemical Parameters in Humans Restricted for a Two-Year Period” by R. Walford, D. Mock, R. Verdery, and T

…

–24. 7. “Coral Reefs and Ocean Acidification” by J. A. Kleypas and K. K. Yates 2009. Oceanography, December, pp. 108–17. 8. “Lessons Learned from Biosphere 2: When Viewed as a Ground Simulation/Analog for Long Duration Human Space Exploration and Settlement” by T. MacCallum, J. Poynter, and D. Bearden 2004. SAE

…

: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization by Robert A. Freitas, Jr., 1979, Xenology Research Institute, Sacramento, California. Figure 45 Biosphere 2, College of Science, University of Arizona. Figure 46 NASA. Figure 47 NASA/JSC. Figure 48 Javiera Guedes. Figure 49 U.S. Government/LLNL. Figure 50

…

, Eric, 275 Anderson, Laurie, 76 Anders, William, 270 Andes mountains, 172 population adaptation to altitude in, 119 Andreessen, Marc, 79 Andrews, Dana, 223 animals: in Biosphere 2, 193 evolution of, 172 human beings compared to, 186, 262 minimum viable population in, 201 in religious sacrifice, 119 in scientific research, 46–49, 250

…

Bible, 148–49 big bang theory, 131, 255 “Big Ear” telescope, 237 Bigelow, Robert, 102–3 binary stars, 126 biohackers (grinders), 207 biomarkers, 216–18 Biosphere 2 experiment, 192–97, 193, 285–86 black projects, 69–70, 72, 144 Blade Runner, 204, 208, 259 Blue Origin, 103 Boeing X-37, 72, 85

…

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 229, 232 Stephenson, Neal, 103 Stevenson, Robert, 114 Stone, Bill, 97–98, 161 string theory, 257 Student, The, 86 Sub-Biosphere 2, 197 suitports, 196 Sun: ancient Greek concept of, 18 demise of, 197, 286 as energy source, 124, 223, 253 formation of, 156 stars that are

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet

by Mark Lynas · 1 Apr 2008 · 364pp · 101,193 words

go on within ecosystems, let alone imagine that we can somehow redesign and replace them. Scientists once tried to build a sealed living world-nicknamed Biosphere 2-from scratch in a big greenhouse in the Arizona desert. They failed. As carbon dioxide levels rose within the sealed greenhouses

…

, Biosphere 2's human inhabitants must have reflected on the lessons they were learning as they gasped for air. Functioning ecosystems cannot be created artificially. Life keeps

…

-4, 91-7, 154-6, 198, 213, 234, 240, 252 Amazon 119 China 171 marine 154 plants 39 under threat 18, 41 biofuels 274-6 Biosphere 2 97 birds 75, 77, 92, 94, 95, 120, 155 Black Sea 237 bogs, thawing 188-9 Bolivia 84, 121 Bombay see Mumbai Boston, USA 165

The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration

by Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees · 18 Apr 2022 · 192pp · 63,813 words

in Chapter 7. Here’s a straightforward challenge to those who dream of terraforming Mars: can you make a “Biosphere 3” that succeeds on Earth? Biosphere 2, a privately funded research station in the Arizona desert, aimed to create a self-contained biosphere, a precursor of colonies on Mars or in space

…

on the way to being overcome when the most serious problem of all—a cutoff in funding—terminated the project. Although the precise interpretation of Biosphere 2’s results remains controversial, an excellent concept to implement before setting out to create a viable, self-contained colony on Mars would be the creation

…

History of One of the World’s Strangest Science Experiments,” New York Times, (March 29, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html. 21. John Grunsfeld, telephone interview, December 24, 2020. 22. Elton John and Bernie Taupin, “Rocket Man,” Honky Château (Uni, 1972), https://genius

…

Atlantic Monthly, 75 Bandyopadhyay, Saptoshi, 58 Bennu, 95, 97 Beresheet, 70 Berra, Yogi, 26 Bezos, Jeff, 38, 39, 90, 99, 108, 111, 113, 131, 148 Biosphere 2, 91 Biosphere 3, 91 Blue Origin, 39, 83, 120 Bohr, Niels, 26 Bradford Industries, 101 Branson, Richard, 38 Bridenstine, James, 142 Buck Rogers, 18 Burrough

The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon!

by Joseph N. Pelton · 5 Nov 2016 · 321pp · 89,109 words

that was contoured with hills and valleys and lakes, an “Earth-like world” that could sustain a rather large population and theoretically be self-sufficient. Biosphere 2 The idea of creating a sustainable space habitat has been envisioned by many but accomplished by few. The “biosphere” that was created in the desert

…

of Arizona in the late 1980s, called Biosphere 2, was an attempt to create a viable self-contained world with “biospherians” inside this large structure. These would be future space colonists who were urged

…

colonies that go beyond the issue of durable machines, and instead consider the vulnerabilities of humans in isolated communities and very long duration missions. The Biosphere 2 experiments not only exposed problems with the sustainability of the atmosphere inside the biosphere but also with human governance and conflict even in small groups

…

left to themselves for extended periods of time. Within the Biosphere 2 before the experiment was shut down the biospherians evolved into what amounted to competing teams and sharp rivalries despite careful vetting of those chosen for

…

rule. Some of the fictional colonies over time deteriorate and form into competing or warring tribes, such as more or less occurred with the unsuccessful “Biosphere 2” experiment. Others become a part of a vast galactic “empire,” where police or soldiers are magically deployed around a galaxy without regard to the laws

…

resources singularity Automatons B B2B SeeBusiness to business (B2B) satellite services B330 BEAM SeeBigelow expandable activity module (BEAM) Bigelow Aerospace Bigelow expandable activity module (BEAM) Biosphere 2 Biospherians Business to business (B2B) satellite services LEO constellations lower VHF and UHF frequency bands MEO and GEO TDRS system C Cable-based electronic entertainment

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller

by Alec Nevala-Lee · 1 Aug 2022 · 864pp · 222,565 words

basic “epiphany” to Fuller: “The idea that Bucky had, that we developed, was to make a model of the Earth’s biosphere.” They called it Biosphere 2. Peter Pearce, a former colleague of Fuller’s, was hired to design and build a space frame that enclosed three acres in Arizona, with a

…

, 138–139, 140, 141, 143–144, 148, 154 Big House, Bear Island, Maine, 30 biohacking, 11 biology, Fuller’s interest in, 316–317 Biosphere, 410 Biosphere 2, 470 Black Mountain College, 227–233, 230fig, 237–243, 239fig Blake, Peter, 234, 301–302, 328 Blouke, Pierre, 110 Blue Hills Reservation state park, 25

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty

by Benjamin H. Bratton · 19 Feb 2016 · 903pp · 235,753 words

aspect of the Island microsociety were to leak out, or some of the outside world to link in, on a regular basis, as happened with Biosphere 2 in the Arizona desert, then the experimental noninterference would be breached, to whatever significant or insignificant degree. If breached, then the island is really just

…

of vast indoor airport cities, thousands of them each supporting hundreds of millions of people, most skirted by lethal security prophylactics.5 Recall that the Biosphere 2 experiment did have a winner. It was the ants that beat back the cockroaches that made the humans go insane.6 The lesson is that

…

Guardian, July 9, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/jul/09/worlds-first-indoor-city-dubai-mall-of-the-world. 6. “Biosphere 2 was a giant sealed world. Eight humans were locked in with a mass of flora and other fauna, and a balanced ecosystem was supposed to

…

biopolitical security, 288 biopolitics Foucauldian, 10, 251 polities of energy and, 92 of population medicine, 6 of privacy, 159, 360 of the statistical imaginary, 257 Biosphere 2, 315, 352, 456n6 Birth of Biopolitics, The (Foucault), 251 bitcoin, 9, 127, 171, 209, 336–337, 393n54 “Black Box, The” (Lem), 341 Black Stack defined

Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature's Secrets to Longevity

by Nicklas Brendborg · 17 Jan 2023 · 222pp · 68,595 words

spread of certain cancers rather than limit them. In the fall of 1991, eight scientists were locked inside a huge futuristic greenhouse in Oracle, Arizona. Biosphere 2, as the building is called, was to be their home for the next two years. Their mission: to provide themselves with food, water, oxygen and

…

used as building material if needed. For these reasons, scientists envisioned trees as a pillar of their new ecosystem and planted plenty of trees in Biosphere 2. Trees live a long time, as we’ve learned, so a few years should be no problem, right? The trees in

…

Biosphere 2 did get off to a good start. Because of the favourable conditions inside the giant greenhouse, they grew rapidly. But before the grand experiment was

…

over, many of the trees were already dead. What were they missing? Not care and nurture. Quite the contrary, actually. What the trees of Biosphere 2 were missing was stress. More specifically, they were missing the stress that the wind normally subjects them to. You see, although the wind is one

…

starvation. Incidentally, Roy Walford ended up trying calorie restriction on himself. In 1991, he was part of the first team inside Biosphere 2, the giant futuristic greenhouse, remember? The goal of Biosphere 2 was to create a closed ecosystem that could provide humans and animals with everything needed to sustain life. Walford and his

…

were locked inside the closed ecosystem for a full two years. As it turns out, building an entire ecosystem from scratch is really hard. The Biosphere 2 team had to drastically cut back their food intake, and eventually required assistance from outside. Over time, it became acceptable to finish each meal by

…

not have gotten the offer. But for Walford, these conditions were a scoop. His time inside Biosphere 2 allowed him to test calorie restriction on humans and the results were confirmatory. During their famished stay in Biosphere 2, all members of the scientific team had lower blood cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and better immune

…

as fairly unethical, to do these kinds of studies in humans. Any volunteers to starve? We do have natural experiments, such as the one from Biosphere 2, of course. And beyond that, there is actually such a thing as calorie-restriction enthusiasts. The ‘Calorie Restriction Society’ is a group of people who

…

energy intake’, Journal of Nutrition, vol. 116, no. 4, 1986, pp. 641–654. Walford, R., Mock, D., Verdery, R., MacCallum, T.J. ‘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: Biological Sciences and