Biosphere II

There are many movies that present us human settlements in space, like “Red Planet,” directed by Anthony Hoffman. In this blockbuster, scientists want to obtain an environment suitable for people to live on Mars through algae colonies there, because of the overpopulation and pollution of Earth. Nowadays we know that it is a pure science fiction story, since it is so far impossible to achieve a completely isolated self-sustained ecosystem, even on Earth. Biosphere II (Earth is called Biosphere I) was a very controversial project of acquiring a secluded system, introduced on September 26, 1991. Four men and four women moved in into an “airtight structure of glass and steel,” that covered two and a half acres of land near Tucson in Arizona, as Ian Anderson describes it in “Biosphere II: A World Apart.” Those eight daredevils were supposed to cultivate their own food, recycle air and water, and uphold a complex ecosystem with an animal farm. Unfortunately, this experiment failed prematurely, proving to humans that Biosphere II was not a perfect, and definitely not ready to imitate nature using scientists’ present knowledge and technology. It was a complete waste of money, time, and manpower. Furthermore, nothing of value was learned.
First of all, the construction of the Biosphere II building was poorly designed. Margret Augustine was the chief planner for the project, but she was not registered with the state of Arizona as an architect (Lee, par.20). Thus the projects had several engineering defects. There were many reports about leaks in the dome, which caused actual contact with the outside world that was forbidden by definition. The use of concrete and steel also seems to have been an unfortunate idea. Concrete is a “mixture of sand and gravel held together by a binding agent which is a mixture of calcium silicate hydrates and calcium hydroxide,” and thus carbon dioxide produced by microbes, animals, and humans was kept out of the circulation in the ground where it reacted with carbon hydroxide (Alper, 202-03). Moreover, an excess of carbon dioxide reacted with water forming carbonic acid that corroded the steel bars, thereby weakening the building’s structure. An incompetent architect and cheap, not suitable materials contributed to the termination of the experiment. Money designated for the building process was literally thrown away into mud.
The biological issues also were not considered as potential weaknesses of the Biosphere II project. A rain forest biome was the most difficult to maintain. Since most of these plants are not able to survive in sunlight, the scientist called for metal louvers. “Financial and maintenance concerns caused planners to dump the louvers, though,” Benningfield writes, “creating an economical problem”(par.35). On the other hand, the ultraviolet rays from the sun that can’t get through glass were essential to guide bees, which were to pollinate flowers. Scientists tried to solve this problem by the use of hummingbirds instead of bees. This was an impossible task for the reason that some hummingbirds “require nectar from thirty two hundred blossoms a day,” while other hummingbirds “soar great distances into the air when they mate, and that poses a problem in a confined space,” as Ian Anderson explains it in “Biosphere II: A World Apart.” The lack of oxygen also imposed biological problems. During first sixteen months the percentage of oxygen in air mysteriously dropped from 21% to 14%. The crew in the complex started to have troubles performing their usual duties. It turned out that microbes in the soil used oxygen to decompose organic matter. Nobody thought that microscopic creatures could pose such a disastrous problem, which called for pumping of pure oxygen into the building, a task impossible to accomplish in space (Alper, p.202). The time used on this part of the project was not well spent, because the scientists never came up with any coherent solution to these biological problems.

Nowadays, commerce creeps into every aspect of our lives, and it did not fail to overshadow the Biosphere II project. Mike Lee in “Questions, Criticism Plague Biosphere” even calls it “fraud, a creation designed not to benefit science but merely to make profits.” The most zealous defender of the experiment is Edward P. Bass, a Texas billionaire. Nobody blames him, since he invested more than hundred fifty million dollars in the Biosphere II. The project did not only collect money from investors and scientific institutions such as Space Biosphere Ventures, but from curious tourists as well. Millions of visitors annually traveled to this place in Arizona, and paid about ten dollars for entry, so they could admire this “wonder of technology.” This contributed to the creation of hotels and restaurants near the complex that boosted local businesses. There are also suspicions that the project is a prototype of “Big Brother,” or “The Survivor.” Linda Leigh in her “Biosphere II: Report from the Inside” admits that while she repaired the plumbing, she “waved at the people on the outside,” at the constantly growing herds of tourists. “It’s Disneyland,” as biochemist David Stumpf summed it up, “it’s those kinds of things, but it is not science” (Lee, par.43).
Another factor contributing to the failure of Biosphere II was swindling performed by the crew as well as by the scientists. It is a moral issue for the most part, but still it interfered with the possibility of obtaining accurate results of this experiment. Mike Lee reports that “the company had lost the original database on the plants and animals in the dome, and had to re-create records by hand” (par.36). He also writes that the crewmembers did not satisfy academic credentials, since two out of eight people in the building were actual scientists. Even NASA planetary scientist, Wendell Mendell, said in this article, “The experiments are not being done in a careful, rigorous, scientific way, because other scientists won’t know what the exact conditions were that produced the results.” Lee also criticized the “cheating” the environment in the complex, by opening the dome to remove poisonous gases, and by bringing in food supplies and other things from the outside world. And who knows? We could live on Mars by now, if the scientists “played fair.” The labor done by the “good” scientists was a waste, as it was contaminated by the “bad” scientists’ work.

There are of course some people from the scientific communities that argue that Biosphere II was a success. They claim that it cleared the way for other experiments of such measure, and the results obtained in Biosphere II contribute to the NASA’s plans to colonize Mars. Of course we can learn from the variety of mistakes that the researchers of this project made. I truly agree with that, since this mission shows exactly how not to build an isolated complex, on Earth or in space. It is not only expensive but also inconvenient to build such a huge base on other planet in our solar system. Scientists working on Biosphere II did not take into the account that different forces rule on other celestial bodies also, which can cause additional problems for the architects and builders (Benningfield, par.17).

As the foregoing analysis shows, Biosphere II was a huge scientific failure. Not only it lacked in architecture, in biological knowledge, or unspecialized crew, but in morals of the scientists as well. Horrid sums of money, and material were dissipated, and I do not even account the valuable time and manpower. It is a shame that such a great idea was wasted in such disgusting manner. Nobody would even suppose that commerce would be a key component that drove this project into disaster. An inexperienced scientific community was also at fault. If they had waited a few more years someone may come up with even more durable materials, and this experiment would lead to even more serious ones. Those would let eventually for colonization of Mars, moon, you name it. I really would love to see a real-life version of “Red Planet.” Until then, I can only dream of cosmic voyages to visit my family on Jupiter.