Biosphere 2
Identification An artificially enclosed ecosystem
experiment
Date September 26, 1991-September 26, 1993;
March 6-September 6, 1994
Although this experiment proved to be overly ambitious and
beset with difficulties from the beginning, it captured the
public’s imagination and contributed useful data to a vari-
ety of fields, including ecology, space science, medicine, and
agriculture.
In name, Biosphere 2 took second place only to Bio-
sphere 1, the Earth’s ecosystem. Located in the Ari-
zona desert and reminiscent of the classic science-
fiction filmSilent Running(1972), the three-acre
complex made up the largest closed system ever
built. It was designed for an ambitious one-hundred-
year study and contained a quarter-acre ocean com-
plete with a coral reef, a mangrove wetland, a savan-
nah grassland, and a fog desert in addition to a
three-quarter-acre agricultural system.
The buildings were designed and built by Marga-
ret Augustine and her Biospheric Design Corpora-
tion. After extensive testing, the hermetic sealing of
the complex set a world record with less than 10 per-
cent leakage, making it thirty times more airtight
than the space shuttle. Heating and cooling were
managed by circulating water through an indepen-
dent piping system, and electrical power came from
a natural gas energy center through airtight connec-
tions.
The First Mission Mission 1 began on September
26, 1991, when, as millions watched on television, an
eight-person crew entered the complex for a two-
year stay. One of the crew members was a medical re-
searcher and doctor, Roy Walford. The other crew
members were Jane Poynter, Taber MacCallum,
Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling, Mark
Van Thillo, and Linda Leigh.
To inaugurate the experiment, an international
environmental symposium, “Biospheric Challenges:
Impacts on the Global Environment,” was convened
by the project’s science consultants. The symposium
attracted more than a hundred international scien-
tific leaders representing, among others, World
Wildlife Fund, Earth Island Institute, Royal Botani-
cal Gardens, and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Cen-
ter. Members of the media declared the experiment
the most exciting scientific venture since the Apollo
program.
Darker days were ahead, however. During the fall
and winter of 1992-1993, the oxygen level in the
complex began an unexpected decline, and carbon
dioxide levels fluctuated dramatically. These phe-
nomena were explained in part by lack of sunlight.
During those months, the area experienced one of
the cloudiest periods on record, due in part to an ex-
ceptionally strong El Niño current. The diminished
sunlight adversely affected photosynthesis and the
associated gas exchange. As an ergonomic experi-
ment, the oxygen levels were allowed to drop to
about 14 percent, comparable to an altitude of
14,000 feet. Oxygen was then injected into the sys-
tem on January 13, 1993.
Although Dr. Walford attributed the purportedly
excellent health of the crew to their low-calorie, low-
fat, nutrient-dense diet, crew members later remem-
bered continual hunger during their two-year stay.
While they were able to produce 80 percent of their
food, they later said they had eaten so many sweet
potatoes their skin took on an orange tint. The re-
maining 20 percent of their food supply was grown
in the complex before the mission.
After the apparently successful completion of the
two-year mission, it was discovered that a carbon di-
oxide scrubber had been surreptitiously added to
the facility and that there had been some unre-
ported supplies brought in. In addition to these
breaches in scientific etiquette, many observers were
irked that the project’s management suppressed ev-
erything about the crew’s personal and social inter-
actions. Consequently, the project that had once
been so highly touted by the press quickly became
the victim of overstatement and an object of a media
feeding frenzy. One report, for instance, said the
Mission 1 crew left the complex gasping for air, and
another called the project the laughingstock of the
scientific community.The Second Mission It was against this backdrop
that the ill-fated Mission 2 began on March 6, 1994.
The crew’s captain was Margaret Augustine’s hus-
band, Norberto Romo. Its other members were John
Druitt, Matt Finn, Pascal Maslin, Charlotte Godfrey,
Rodrigo Romo (not related to Norberto), and Tilak
Mahato. The mission was intended to last ten
months.102 Biosphere 2 The Nineties in America