September 27 - Where Are They Now? Wednesday - Biosphere 2

This week’s WHERE ARE THEY NOW? WEDNESDAY is Biosphere 2.
Yesterday marked the anniversary of it’s opening and closing. The project conducted it’s initial sealed mission from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993.

Biosphere 2 is a structure built near Tuscon Arizona. It was to be an artificially closed ecological system. It was used to test if and how people could live and work in a closed biosphere, while carrying out scientific experiments. It explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization, and also allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth's.

The name comes from the idea that it is modeled on the first biosphere, which is Earth.

The funding for the $200,000,000 project came from Edward Bass.

The inaugural crew of eight included a medical doctor, researchers and scientists: Roy Walford, Jane Poynter, Taber McCullum, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling, Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh. Jane and Taber married a year after exiting Biosphere 2. It’s only a rumor that she gave birth to a “bubble boy.”

The original vision of the Biosphere called for sealing it up for 100 years, with two-year tours of duty for teams of bionauts (or bio-nuts if you prefer). But you know what they say about people in glass houses, they have faded furniture.

In January 1992, while at a company meeting in Phoenix, I drove the 250 mile round-trip journey to visit Biosphere 2. As you toured the facility you could watch the scientists work within the glass enclosure. It was like a surreal people zoo. As I ate my Slim Jim and Doritos, a sense of guilt came over me. These people could only eat what they grew. The guilt was actually caffeine withdrawal. It quickly subsided as I drank my Dr. Pepper.

During their stay in Biosphere 2, the crew found that they could not grow as much food as anticipated. Eventually it was learned that someone had sneaked in Burger King food.

Honestly, if you’re going to break a two-year fast food abstinence, would you select Burger King?

The Biosphere's headlines got more and more interesting. It was revealed that the bionauts had snuck an oxygen-generating machine into the sealed environment after they realized that the atmosphere wasn't going to be life sustaining after all.

But the most exciting part came after a change in management motivated a pair of the original bionauts to break a window in the Biosphere, ruining the whole sealed-for-a-century plan.

A second Biosphere experiment lasted only six months.

So WHAT IS THE STATE OF BIOSPHERE 2?

As of June 2006, the structure is no longer maintained in an airtight state, and the property is slated to be redeveloped for a planned community. Fairfield Homes is making a deal to buy the Biosphere's spectacular 1,600 acres to develop a master-planned community. Evidently, a three-acre simulation of the planet isn't a selling point for buyers of luxury homes these days.

For those of you keeping score at home : McMansions 1, Biosphere 0