Living in a bubble

Tombstone was in our rear view mirrors as we headed north toward Catalina, Arizona.  We were going to visit Biosphere 2, a place Jaz had heard about.  I’m always in, and game for most anything I’ve not done before.

What was Biosphere 2?  I didn’t really know.  It’s said B2, as it’s known, is another modern marvel.  It’s currently a research facility used to study ecosystem processes under controlled conditions, including water, soil, air, sun with the hope of improving the quality of life for everyone.  Construction of the $150,000 million facility began in 1986 with the intent to research and develop self-sustaining space-colonization technology.

Biosphere 2, which is now managed by the University of Arizona.  Originally the backing came from a private source which made this possible.  What an idea, concept, and final product.

Jaz and I signed up for a tour on Saturday, March 22, that would take us under the glass into the biomes, the various environment areas.  As we approached we looked at some futuristic-type of community, built in the shape of some weird pyramid, and all glass.  In fact, the glass-enclosed facility covers 3.14 acres and houses 7.2 million feet under 6,500 windows.  That’s a lot of glass to clean.  The highest point is 91 feet and the structure is sealed from the earth by a 500-ton welded stainless-steel liner.  There are thousands of miles of wiring, pipes and ductwork … and that’s just the minimum in facts.

The actual site and buildings.

There is a great beauty in these buildings.

There were two human missions, one of which was eight people who lived under glass (like pheasants), for two years, 20 minutes (20 minutes longer than the time they intended to be enclosed).  While they had to transplant many of the plants rather than start them from seeds so they'd have crops sooner, they farmed and raised animals for food, and were otherwise completely self-sufficient.  However, the mission had problems as the people lost weight mostly because of oxygen issues.  Twice oxygen had to be injected into the biosphere so they didn’t perish.  The oxygen levels went so low that they couldn’t complete most of their research and they could only work on providing themselves with food.  So, it was a sad time for them that they were only existing and not doing what they’d set out to accomplish.

The second mission only lasted about six months.

We were first shown a movie so we’d have the general idea of what B2 was all about.  Then we went on the walking tour.

We entered through submarine-style locks.

Water is the main focus of B2 research.  There is an ocean biome and we could see it from the top, as well as from underneath when we went below the surface.  It was pretty cool and quite beautiful.  It wasn’t as humid as it usually is inside these two areas and for that I was grateful.  The ocean biome is 26 feet deep and holds 670,000 gallons of salt water.  It acts just like the ocean, and has fish and growth in it.

The ocean biome is quite beautiful, but not so much so that I wanted to take a dive into it.

This is the other end of the ocean biome, and there's a waterfall.

We also went into the rain forest biome that includes more than 90 species of plants.  Some of them are more than 60 feet tall.  While the people were enclosed there were two monkey-like creatures called galagos (also known as bush babies … or little night monkeys in Afrikaans) in the rain forest.  One thing no one had thought of was that with no walls separating some of the biomes, the galagos could travel and they did, causing problems wherever they went.  They didn’t fare too well with electrical items and so on.  I don’t think they lasted too long.  I’m sure they were turd-chuckers, too, just like regular monkeys.  Yuck!!!

The plants were beneath us and towering over our heads.  You could see a small waterfall in the not-so-far distance.  It was beautiful but there was something growing in there that made me sneeze.  I’ve done a lot of sneezing on this trip … different plants in bloom at a different time of year from when I’m usually down here in July/August.

The rain forest was a place of beauty and not too humid on this day.

Long strands of plant life dangle and you hope you'd not have to try to make a path through it.  I was not carrying a machete.

A point of interest was that rainforests are called nature’s skyscrapers because they are like a tall building with a low level, a canopy and then the high layer some 200 feet above the ground.  It’s pretty impressive to see all of this plant life within a glass structure because it’s huge.

The desert biome was interesting because I was already in the desert and what appeared to be a Saguaro cactus was not.  I believe she said it had come from California. 

There are still tests and studies being done and this one was in the desert biome.

We wandered through underground tunnels that made me think I was in some strange space-type movie, or maybe an undersea movie.  The tunnels actually connect the lungs to B2 (see the photo below).



This is one of two "lungs," located at either end of B2.  The lungs are one of many great engineering achievements as B2 was designed to be well-sealed and isolated from the outside environment.  The lungs regulate changes in pressure rather like big bellows, or your lungs (hence the name).  As there are no pressure relief valves if there were too much heat and the air expanded, B2 could explode; likewise, if the air were too cool and contracted, B2 could implode. Inside the lungs a giant synthetic rubber membrane with a circular metal disk floats freely on a cushion of air.  It rises and falls as the air expands and contracts.   We saw them moving up and down as air moved through, heating and cooling.  It was pretty neat to see.

In all, there are five biomes, rain forest, ocean, desert, savannah and marsh.  It’s a very neat place to visit and one that I’d not have thought of myself.  We also saw where the biospherians lived, their kitchen, common area and private areas.  There will continue to be studies and research, and I only hope it won’t be too late as we have so many people on the earth, and it seems as though we aren’t slowing down.  Too many people, too little food, and eventually we will cease to exist.