Biosphere 2

An artificial enclosed ecosystem constructed in the late 1980s, which was intended to explore the interactions of livings systems with the environment. The structure contained 5 biomes— a rainforest, an ocean with a coral reef, mangrove wetlands, savannah grassland, fog desert—an agricultural area and human habitat. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy centre through airtight penetrations.It was intended to generate data about the viability of self-sufficiency in enclosed environments on other planets for future space exploration.

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Its ecological self-organisation showed us how it best adapted to the environment inside Biosphere 2.

Views from another world: Biosphere 2 was one of the most ambitious experiments in biospheric science. 25 years later, one of the original team members looks back on the project and examines its legacy

The Biosphere 2 story begins with an intentional community, Synergia Ranch, and its visionary leader, John Allen.

Rebecca Reider. Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities

In 2003 Columbia decided to pull out, and Biosphere 2 has been kept open for paid public tours since then.

Biosphere 2 on the block

The sample from the Biosphere 2 ocean had the next lowest concentration (66 pg/L), indicating that high residence time of water over the reef community--in this case, eight years--does not necessarily create high concentrations of estrogen.

Estrogens in coastal waters: the sewage source. (Science Selections)

Biosphere 2, so called because the Earth itself is considered Biosphere 1, offers tours and overnight stays to people interested in the high-tech nerve center of earth-science research and education.

Biosphere 2 teaches Earth's importance

A junior at Notre Dame in Indiana, Glynn was one of 50 college students who gathered at Biosphere 2 in the scenic Arizona desert to participate in Columbia University's "Earth Semester" an innovative four-and-a-half-month, 16-credit undergraduate program.

Class Under Glass

Originally conceived as a sealed laboratory for would-be explorers of Mars, Biosphere 2 fell into scientific disrepute when its eight original residents suffered from a lack of oxygen in their artificial atmosphere (see sidebar).

Brave new world of Biosphere 2?

Biosphere 2 was supposed to be a self-sustaining world-within-a-world, a potential model for a colony in space (see SW 9/20/91, p.

Biosphere 2: the doors open

The ecosystems of Biosphere 2 are varied and complex.

Biosphere 2 Nerve System

Small-scale rain forests, oceans, and marshes are being built inside Biosphere 2, a 9100-square-meter steel, glass, and concrete structure in the Arizona desert under development by Space Biospheres Ventures (Oracle, Ariz.).

Bionic welding

* On 26 September 1993, four women and four men smartly dressed in navy blue overalls, walked out through the airlock of Biosphere 2 to breath the planets natural air for the first time in two years.

PUSHING OUR LIMITS: Insights from Biosphere 2

Millions of people have heard about Biosphere 2's problems, which led to the termination of human experiments in 1994.