A good write-up of an amazing (and cautionary) story that should be more widely known.
Great article! So I understand the place is still standing and we’re still experimenting? Had no idea!
It does seem so, but I’m guessing it’s mostly a tourism venue at this point.
What I find interesting is how the experiment effectively taught us some humility:
But the most important lesson from the biospherians’ experience, experts agree, is the realisation of how difficult it would be to live anywhere else than on Earth. Humans can’t exist in isolation; they come in “biospheric packages”, as Nelson puts it, and recreating these complex systems is no easy task. While Tilman reckons that some of the problems may have been solvable, it was clear during his visit to the facility that it was a long way away from being able to sustain human life. “It really impacted me when I saw that, because… my initial guess was that you would probably make it work,” he says. Now, “I firmly believe that this really is our only planet ever”.
I saw the documentary on this experiment and it was super interesting and informative. Highly recommend.
Yes that’s the one!
Are you this isn’t the documentary that you saw?
I’ll see myself out.
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The main problem with Biosphere 2 was that it was as much an instance of performance art as it was an attempt to create a sealed biosphere. When you’re doing an experiment you should be trying to control variables, not throwing everything into a huge pot and seeing what happens.
Harsh! I do faintly remember it (very young at the time) and I do vaguely remember a bit of a circus atmosphere, sure.
