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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas,

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Speaker 1: and we are sealed inside the Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind podcasting chamber right now, and we are going after

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Speaker 1: a really fascinating topic and one that that really meshes

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Speaker 1: well with our our sealed environment here. Yes, that's right.

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Speaker 1: We're doing a little armchair traveling today and we're going

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Speaker 1: to travel back to or ninety two or so. But

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Speaker 1: before we do that, let's talk about this concept of

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Speaker 1: a utopia, a garden of Eden. This is this thing

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Speaker 1: that we aspire to. Oh yes, I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: an idea that has been with this rageous right that

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Speaker 1: there perhaps was a primordial time, an untouched time, where

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Speaker 1: everything was was perfect, and that we could maybe recreate

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Speaker 1: that through some system, because it seems it seems like

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Speaker 1: we have all of these flaws right in in in

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Speaker 1: human culture and human society. The way we do things,

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Speaker 1: the way we interact with the world. It's it's inherently flawed.

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Speaker 1: We're on this doom trajectory and there's got to be

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Speaker 1: something we could do to change at some order. We

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Speaker 1: could put on ourselves, some technology we could we could

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Speaker 1: aspire to something that would turn things around and save

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Speaker 1: us from ourselves and maybe, depending on what your worldview

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Speaker 1: is and you and and how you view your mythic history,

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Speaker 1: return us to some uh, some previous mode of living

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Speaker 1: that was pristine, yeah, replete with waterfalls, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we could do that. We are of course talking about

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Speaker 1: biosphere too, which how do you explain this? I think

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Speaker 1: about it as like this burning man fever dream, like

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Speaker 1: let's put up an arc in the desert and create

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Speaker 1: a utopia. But it's not, in fact a fever dream,

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Speaker 1: or may be it was, uh one of the founders

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Speaker 1: of this idea's fever dream. It actually came into reality

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Speaker 1: in the early nineties and it served as this kind

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Speaker 1: of mini earth. Yeah, I mean, it was, in a

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Speaker 1: sense kind of a scientific burning Man because because the

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Speaker 1: you can certainly make comparisons between the the energy that

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Speaker 1: that started each of these endeavors, and while one was

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Speaker 1: what one was based in, uh in art and expression

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Speaker 1: and have just having a big old party out in

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Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere, the oh, there is a scientific endeavor. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we're talking about this miniature air tight world that

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Speaker 1: sprang up in the desert, and we're gonna take a

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Speaker 1: look at this in two episodes. Today's episode is going

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Speaker 1: to focus more on the architecture and what happened during

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Speaker 1: this experiment, um so. And we do want to mention

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Speaker 1: that there have been other biospheres built before, mainly in

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Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies by Russian and American scientists, but

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Speaker 1: those really pale in comparison to the grand er that

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Speaker 1: is biosphere too. Yeah, the grandeur is key here because

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Speaker 1: this was I mean, it was really a realization of

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Speaker 1: ideas that had previously mostly been the domain of conjecture

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Speaker 1: and even science fiction. Like I instantly think back to

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Speaker 1: n film Silent Running, where you had h all of

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Speaker 1: the forest on Earth had been decimated, and you had

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Speaker 1: and you had all the ecosystems of the Earth sealed

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Speaker 1: off and self contained hemispheres in space looked after by

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Speaker 1: Bruce dern in some Robots and and that is a

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Speaker 1: really beautiful film with a strong ecological message, but it

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Speaker 1: was very much science fiction. But fast forward a couple

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Speaker 1: of decades and you see it actually take shape on

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Speaker 1: the Earth, and it is an amazing endeavor. It is.

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Speaker 1: The project was originally conceived and executed by a group

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Speaker 1: of adventurers, artists, and philosophers known as the Centergists, and

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Speaker 1: they have the financial backing of Texas billionaire Ed Bass

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Speaker 1: and oil magnet, and with that financing, they were actually

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Speaker 1: able to bring this this idea to life. Yes. First

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Speaker 1: of all, Ed Bass is one of two really key

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Speaker 1: individuals for this whole project, because of course he had

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Speaker 1: the funds to make it happen. Uh, And he's really

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Speaker 1: is one of these characters that also makes you rethink

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Speaker 1: the term Texas oil billionaire because this is a guy

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Speaker 1: you know that that was and is remains very active

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Speaker 1: and environmentalist and philanthropic endeavors. But the other key individual, uh,

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Speaker 1: the other guy that this could not have happened without,

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Speaker 1: is one John Allen. And we could really just devote

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Speaker 1: a whole podcast that who wanted to to just analyzing

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Speaker 1: John Allen because with this guy, you have a Colorado

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Speaker 1: School of Minds trained metal orgist in Harvard NBA. All right,

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Speaker 1: no big deal, uh, nineteen sixty three, he's uh, he's

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Speaker 1: in a Manhattan office building. And the story goes that

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Speaker 1: this was following two hallucinogenic experiences with peyote. He looks

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Speaker 1: out the window at this uh, this the sprawling metropolis,

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Speaker 1: and in sees the air out there, and he realizes

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Speaker 1: that he can't open the window to get to that air.

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Speaker 1: He has this epiphany. Uh. So he quits his job,

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Speaker 1: heads out and begins seeking wisdom around the world. Um.

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Speaker 1: By ninety seven he's become a self styled esoteric teacher

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Speaker 1: in San Francisco, and his students go to New York

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Speaker 1: and they set up a theater company. From there, they

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Speaker 1: go to New Mexico where they start a commune near

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Speaker 1: Santa Fe. And eventually he Eat meets add Bass, and

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Speaker 1: add Bass starts listening to some of his ideas, and uh,

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Speaker 1: and his ideas are really impressive. Yeah. I should also

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Speaker 1: mention to you that that this group also has an

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Speaker 1: oceanic research vessel. And all this time there they are

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Speaker 1: trying in earnest to be rigorous about a scientific approach

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Speaker 1: to the environment. And at this time Alan really comes

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Speaker 1: up with the basis of this idea of the biosphere.

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Speaker 1: He says, quote, there is a crisis of misalignment between

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Speaker 1: the biosphere and the technosphere. These seem to be out

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Speaker 1: of balance a catastrophe. Biosphere too, instead creates a balance

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Speaker 1: between biosphere and technosphere. In other words, he's going to

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Speaker 1: try to use the technology and and the money here

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Speaker 1: that to create something of an artificial utopia. There's a

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Speaker 1: great deal of interest with the synergists, who later redub

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Speaker 1: themselves the Institute for Eco Technics, with not only understanding

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Speaker 1: the environment but essentially bottling it up in the same

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Speaker 1: way that you have, uh, the idea of a bottled terrarium. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and this is of course, is is looking into

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Speaker 1: the future, thinking about the long term survival of the

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Speaker 1: human rights, thinking about space exploration, thinking about how do

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Speaker 1: we take not just a little of our environment with us,

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Speaker 1: How do we not just take uh, you know, a

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Speaker 1: portion of it that we consume and it has to

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Speaker 1: be replenished. How do we take a self sustaining portion

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Speaker 1: of our world with us and and even see other

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Speaker 1: worlds with it. Yeah, this really was one of the

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Speaker 1: missions of this project. And according to The New York

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Speaker 1: Times in and they reported on it, the structure was

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Speaker 1: builed as the first large habitat for humans that would

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Speaker 1: live and breathe on its own as cut off from

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Speaker 1: the Earth. As a spaceship. And again the idea was

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Speaker 1: to to have this many atmosphere that could be portable eventually,

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Speaker 1: but also to better understand Earth's biosphere or as the

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Speaker 1: biosphere Ian called it, biosphere one. Yes. Yeah, I also

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Speaker 1: want to point out that at a at a conference

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Speaker 1: in oracle In, Allan announced his plan to build a

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Speaker 1: prototype Mars calling on Earth before the decade was out.

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Speaker 1: And he and he he said that the destiny of

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Speaker 1: human beings was to see Earth's life into space. In

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Speaker 1: the first stop would be a working colony on Mars.

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Speaker 1: So these are some of the far reaching, ambitious ideas

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Speaker 1: that were that were in the heads of John Allen

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Speaker 1: and ultimately in the heads of those who, for lack

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Speaker 1: of a better word, followed him and and and just

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Speaker 1: bought into his vision. Now, let's talk about really where

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Speaker 1: the rubber meets the road here when we're talking about

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Speaker 1: this building. Okay, because so far we've been talking about

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Speaker 1: all these sort of like esoteric ideas of utopia and

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Speaker 1: biosphere and balancing. But what do you need in order

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Speaker 1: to do that? You need an incredibly huge structure. And

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Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty seven to ninete this structure was built

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Speaker 1: in the snore and desert about thirty miles north of Tucson,

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Speaker 1: and we were talking about a seven million, two hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand cubic foot sealed glass and space frame structure spread

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Speaker 1: over three point one five acres massive. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: should also add that the original idea is they built

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Speaker 1: this thing to laugh. The idea was that rotating crews

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Speaker 1: would work here for a century. So one crew comes in,

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Speaker 1: then the next crew comes in, and the experiment keeps

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Speaker 1: going and going. Uh. You know, in all this, I

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Speaker 1: keep thinking that like one of the other only other

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Speaker 1: minds that comes that comes to my mind when I

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Speaker 1: when I think of vision, like this is Walt Disney,

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Speaker 1: and we know we've talked about his plans for for uh,

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Speaker 1: for Walt Disney World and especially for Apcot Center, and

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Speaker 1: how ambitious, crazy ambitious those ideas were, and those ideas

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Speaker 1: had to be rolled back to meet the realities of business.

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Speaker 1: And with Biosphere too, you see a bit of that.

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Speaker 1: But they actually they actually got more of that vision

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Speaker 1: somewhat accomplished, initially accomplished well, and we'll talk at a

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Speaker 1: little bit about this more later, but there had to

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Speaker 1: be an immense amount of excitement here because that's you know,

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Speaker 1: initially the plan was thirty million dollars to build this,

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Speaker 1: but it took two hundred million dollars. With that kind

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Speaker 1: of wallet open, you can see how a lot of

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Speaker 1: people would be interested in jumping on this and contributing

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Speaker 1: to it, because you are, in a sense, making history

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Speaker 1: with this building and with this plan. And one of

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Speaker 1: the things, one of the reasons why it was so

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Speaker 1: expensive is because it had to emulate a closed system

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Speaker 1: that was energetically open, much like Earth. Right, So in

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Speaker 1: other words, it's a materially closed system. So plants, for instance,

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Speaker 1: biomass can't leave the system, but energy can, right, because

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Speaker 1: whether or not it's heated or if it's absorbed um

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Speaker 1: in other ways, it can move around in an energetic way.

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Speaker 1: And that takes a lot of engineering, a lot of

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Speaker 1: know how, and a lot of technology to pull that off.

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Speaker 1: And it didn't skimp on bringing in great minds to

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Speaker 1: work on this. It wasn't one of these situations where

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Speaker 1: it's like a crazy guy building a pyramid out in

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Speaker 1: the desert. No, that they brought in some of the

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Speaker 1: finest minds to help construct not only the structure itself,

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Speaker 1: but then ultimately the environments within it. Indeed, I mean

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Speaker 1: it really became this unprecedented research tool, a mini Earth

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Speaker 1: as much as you could make. All Right, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna continue talking about the structure itself and the creation

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Speaker 1: of the environments with it. We're back, all right, um

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Speaker 1: I I really love the architecture of Biosphere too. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's very beautiful. And if you haven't seen it, or

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Speaker 1: haven't seen it recently, go visit our website. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to make sure that we have a gallery there some

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Speaker 1: really stunning images of this place, because yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a beautiful building. It's absolute retro futurist. It's got, um

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Speaker 1: you know, the geodesic structures, those domes that are inspired

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Speaker 1: by Buckminster Fuller. It's got even sort of Moorish architecture

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Speaker 1: to it as well, and some of the I guess

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Speaker 1: you would call the lungs of the building. And it

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Speaker 1: was designed by a company called Biospheric Design, and again

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Speaker 1: they were influenced, um by all of the sort of sixties,

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Speaker 1: seventy and eightiest retro future visions of what this glass

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Speaker 1: beheam of could be. And to me, I kind of

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Speaker 1: I even think about it as this futuristic crystal palace. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it really does have that kind of looked to it.

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Speaker 1: I I was looking at again, these images are fabulous

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Speaker 1: and that you look at them and you see this

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Speaker 1: place kind of like emerging out of the desert, but

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Speaker 1: just emerging out of time. It's kind of it's it's

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Speaker 1: unreal to to look at it. And it was built

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Speaker 1: as the world's most air type building. It was designed

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Speaker 1: to leak no more than ten percent of its air

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Speaker 1: per year, and that is half the rate of the

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Speaker 1: Space Shuttle. And it's stealed on the bottom by a

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Speaker 1: stainless steel liner and on the top by steel and

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Speaker 1: glass frame structure. So it really does try to fit

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Speaker 1: those parameters really tightly. Because again, this was sort of

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Speaker 1: if you think about it, this was probably the thing

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Speaker 1: that the entire project was hanging on, this ability for

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Speaker 1: it to keep its energy steal. Right. Of course, all

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Speaker 1: this glass is key because obviously we need it. Again,

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Speaker 1: it's thermodynamically open, so we need heat energy energy from

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Speaker 1: the sun to actually enter through the glass. Yeah, in

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Speaker 1: order to compensate for changes in air volume which should

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Speaker 1: be caused by solar heating, right, the expanding atmosphere because

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Speaker 1: of the heat and because of those alternating day and

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Speaker 1: night temperatures, there were these large dome shape lungs that

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Speaker 1: were constructed to deal with that expansion and make sure

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Speaker 1: that the exterior didn't fracture to the point that the

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Speaker 1: building would lose its integrity in the case of that

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Speaker 1: seal that we were talking about. And so in this

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Speaker 1: seven million, two hundred thousand cubic foot sealed structure, how

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Speaker 1: much air do we actually have in there? How much

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Speaker 1: soil do we have in there? We have about hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty one thousand cubic meters of atmosphere with about

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Speaker 1: seventeen thousand meters cubic meters of soil and about one million,

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Speaker 1: five hundred thousand liters of fresh water, which doesn't even

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Speaker 1: account for this big ocean they put in there. Oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: the artificial sea of biosphere to containing six hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy six thousand gallons or two million, five hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty five thousand, eight hundred ninety four liters uh and

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Speaker 1: this was designed to be a coral reef reminiscent of

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Speaker 1: the Caribbean and UH and just for future reference. And

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Speaker 1: you can see this in some of the images that

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Speaker 1: they were sharing on this the the ocean is situated

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Speaker 1: between the desert in the rainforest. It's kind of a

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Speaker 1: buffer zone, a temperature buffer. Yeah. So we've thrown all

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Speaker 1: these statistics out at you, and I think you guys

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Speaker 1: all have a good idea of how massive the structure was.

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Speaker 1: But just imagine yourself on a cliff. Okay, Like you

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Speaker 1: look above you and there's this glass dome, and you're

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Speaker 1: on this cliff, and you're now looking over at a

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Speaker 1: eight hundred fifty square mile coral reef, a four hundred

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Speaker 1: fifty square mile mangrove marsh, a nineteen hundred square mile

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Speaker 1: Amazonian rainforest, hundred square mile savannah grassland, and then oh sure,

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Speaker 1: I'll take a fourteen hundred square mile fog desert. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that sounds good. Oh, in a little tropical agriculture system

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Speaker 1: with a farm, in a human habitat with living quarters. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right, because you have the whole agricultural section as well.

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Speaker 1: By the way, that rainforest um that was designed by

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Speaker 1: Sir Gillian Prance uh then director of the New York

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Speaker 1: Botanical Garden and uh as far as the the ocean

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Speaker 1: area is concerned. I was designed by Walter A. D

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Speaker 1: a geologist at the Smithsonian Institute. Yeah, and there's a

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Speaker 1: waterfall in there. It's absolutely gorgeous. And if you look

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Speaker 1: at some old footage of some of the Biospherians talking

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Speaker 1: about their experience, they well, I'll say it was beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Like That's the thing that stood out most to me

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Speaker 1: is just how incredible this environment was. Yeah. I mean

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Speaker 1: you look at these images and it's it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like silent running, except more fabulous. Like it's more amazing

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Speaker 1: looking than some of the sci fi visions that came

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Speaker 1: before it. It's it's on par with Wonka Land, except

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Speaker 1: that the waterfall is not chocolate but water. And we'll

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Speaker 1: come back to to Wonka in a bit um. And

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Speaker 1: you know, it reminds me a bit too. If I

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Speaker 1: remember when I was a kid, my family would go

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Speaker 1: up to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, which has

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Speaker 1: these big I've been there, right, Well, you know they

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Speaker 1: have the big enclosed gardens, but but it's not really closed.

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Speaker 1: It's my no means of biosphere. But I remember walking

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Speaker 1: through it and like sort of imagining that I was

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Speaker 1: in a spaceship. It's a little like that. Yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: And this is pretty amazing too. It it had something

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Speaker 1: like three thousand documented species of plants and animals across

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Speaker 1: its five biomes. So we're talking about everything from scorpions

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Speaker 1: to microbes, to coral reefs, to crops and pests. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they really tried to represent actual ecosystems here,

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Speaker 1: not just a situation of viol let's have some goats

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Speaker 1: to milk, let's have some some chickens to eat, you know,

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. It was let's have actual ecosystems.

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Speaker 1: These need to be. These need to be the world

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Speaker 1: in small Yeah. And if you have any doubt about

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Speaker 1: the breath and depth of this project, consider that some

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Speaker 1: of these species were grown in greenhouses, but some of

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Speaker 1: them were trucked in as entire landscapes. And you had

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Speaker 1: swaths of tropical rainforest sampled from Venezuela savannah, from French Guiana,

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Speaker 1: desert from the Baja Marsh, from the ever Glades, and

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Speaker 1: at the suggestion and left us of william S Burrows,

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Speaker 1: bush babies were introduced to supply companion primates. I did

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Speaker 1: not I did not run across that in my notes

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Speaker 1: that William S Burrows actually contributed to this project. Sure,

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Speaker 1: he weighed in it on as well. You want his

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Speaker 1: name on the credits list when the scientists start pulling

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Speaker 1: things apart later on, right, that's gonna help. Um. Now.

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Speaker 1: Jane Poyter, who was one of the biosphereans, and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about her later, she said

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Speaker 1: that they called it their Garden of Eden on top

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Speaker 1: of an aircraft carrier. And that's an app comparison, I think,

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Speaker 1: because the the infrastructure required, the technology required for all

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Speaker 1: of that, for all these these ecosystems to thrive within

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Speaker 1: this contained environment, is pretty extensive. Yeah, because when we're

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Speaker 1: talking about that structure below it, we're talking about twenty

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Speaker 1: six air handler units in the basement of the technospheres

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Speaker 1: they called it, that had the ability to heat and

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Speaker 1: cool air and create condensate water for biospheres tooth and

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Speaker 1: rain and fog atmospheres. Yeah, underneath you had mazes of pipes,

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Speaker 1: events water tanks, a huge, huge empty vaps that we

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Speaker 1: used to process human waste. Um. Yeah, but of course

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Speaker 1: the cooling system because you're having to you're trying to

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Speaker 1: keep a sealed greenhouse cool in a desert um and

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Speaker 1: that requires a great deal of energy. So it is

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Speaker 1: it's like an aircraft carrier, were the infrastructure beneath the

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Speaker 1: this magical sci fi eten and you've got electrical power

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Speaker 1: supplied to the biosphere from natural gas energy center, which

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Speaker 1: is located outside of biosphere too, through air tight penetrations.

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Speaker 1: Just in case you were wondering how that was happening,

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Speaker 1: but still you can you can argue that, I guess

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Speaker 1: it's geothermically it's geothermically open, so so that's allowed. All right,

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Speaker 1: So now you have an idea of eating on top

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Speaker 1: of this aircraft carrier. We're gonna take a quick break

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Speaker 1: and we get back. We're going to talk about life

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Speaker 1: in the biosphere. All right, we're back, and yes, indeed,

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Speaker 1: life in the biasphere. Instantly, when you think about Biasphre two,

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Speaker 1: you can't help but focus on the human aspect of it.

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Speaker 1: Those eight individuals that actually went in dressed in their

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Speaker 1: kind of star trek looking uniforms and gave some wonderful

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Speaker 1: speeches before they did too, and and then had to

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Speaker 1: live in there, had to work in there and roll

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Speaker 1: with some of the difficulties that ended up popping up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: night to ninety one. They enter for two years in

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Speaker 1: twenty minutes, as Jane Pointner says, and uh, all eight

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Speaker 1: of them hung out together. We're talking about Jane Poytner,

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Speaker 1: who was the lead scientist. There was Roy Walford, a

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Speaker 1: doctor who studied restricted calorie diets, Tkayror McCallum, Linda Leah botanist,

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Speaker 1: Abigail Ailing, a marine biologist, Mark Nelson who was in

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Speaker 1: charge of the waste recycling systems, Mark von Telo who

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Speaker 1: was in charge of those machines, that technosphere, and then

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Speaker 1: Sally over student Stone who was the captain of them all.

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Speaker 1: And this was not the first time these individuals met.

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Speaker 1: This was a close knit group. They were all biosphereans. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They were they were all very much in line with

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Speaker 1: the ideas of John Allen uh and UH and they

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Speaker 1: had been engaged in this and work leading up to this.

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Speaker 1: So it's important to know that these these were not

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Speaker 1: just chamos taken off the street. That while some of

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Speaker 1: them may have engaged in theater in the past, these

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Speaker 1: were not just It wasn't a theater troupe that was

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Speaker 1: thrown into this. Uh. This Eden on an aircraft carrier. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These were individuals who were very invested in the idea

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Speaker 1: and had varying backgrounds that befitted someone that was going

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Speaker 1: to live in a biosphere for two years. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: you know, if this were a theater troupe that was

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Speaker 1: just thrown in there, as the media kind of tried

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Speaker 1: to pretend, you know, they wouldn't last for more than

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours. And I'm not saying anything against theater troupe.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm one of you guys out there, um, one

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Speaker 1: of of us. But because we can't help, you know,

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Speaker 1: Big Brother, the TV series Reality Sensation, when we think

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Speaker 1: about this, because that idea was inspired by biosphere too,

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Speaker 1: So we think about individuals thrown into this environment. We

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Speaker 1: think of instantly think about interpersonal conflict and people who

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Speaker 1: don't know each other having to deal with each other.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that actors have a lot of

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Speaker 1: interpersonal but I'm saying there's a huge psychological element to this,

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Speaker 1: and that all those biosphereens had to be ready for this,

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Speaker 1: and they trained for this in various ways over the

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Speaker 1: two years um that this was being put into place,

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Speaker 1: and some of them and I believe it was Pointner

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Speaker 1: in perhaps Sally's silver stone. They also did some some

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Speaker 1: closed system trials and lived and tried to work in

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Speaker 1: smaller environments to get themselves ready for this. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: by and large, all these individuals went on after biosphere

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Speaker 1: to continue to work in in in related areas UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, for instance, Mark Nelson continued to work in

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Speaker 1: UM in watershed management, environmental engineering. Uh, you know, they

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Speaker 1: all stayed within their their wheelhouses. So these were people

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Speaker 1: that were invested long term in the disciplines that brought

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Speaker 1: them to buy it through the biosphere. Yeah, particularly Jane Potner,

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Speaker 1: and we can talk about her later, but she's done

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Speaker 1: a lot of work in the fields of environmental science

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Speaker 1: and space exploration. But so, all right, you get a

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Speaker 1: group of people together, you they're all working together, they're fine,

396
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Speaker 1: but you know, they have to deal with the basics, right,

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Speaker 1: like food, and this is where things get a bit

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Speaker 1: dicey in the biosphere. All right. Now, keep in mind

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Speaker 1: that if you you want a pizza in the biosphere,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have to make it from scratch. And we're

401
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:47,879
Speaker 1: talking about taking the seed, growing the seed, threshing the wheat,

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Speaker 1: um feeding your goat, milking the goat. So, as Jane

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Speaker 1: Pointner has said, um in some of her talks, if

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Speaker 1: you want a pizza, it's going to take four months.

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Speaker 1: And I think that gives you an idea of the

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00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 1: kind of challenges they were up against in producing their

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Speaker 1: own food and maintaining it. Yeah, I believe the original

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00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: estimate was that they would be able to grow eighty

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Speaker 1: percent of the food they needed within the biosphere. Um.

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Speaker 1: And and even that was it was pretty ambitious, considering

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Speaker 1: that they just had about a half an acre to

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Speaker 1: grow all this food that they're they're not using pesticides,

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Speaker 1: they're they're having to do all the work themselves. But

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Speaker 1: but then, but before they launch, uh, the management decided, well,

415
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: isn't gonna cut it. We need to and to make

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Speaker 1: up for that, we're gonna put everybody on a calorie restricted,

417
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Speaker 1: low fat, nutrient dense diet. Yes, it's just sensible, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, because if food is an issue, well, then

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Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna cut back as much as we're

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Speaker 1: we're pushing the envelope on our ability to produce it.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of that has to do with the

422
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Speaker 1: types of food that you can grow at that point, right,

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Speaker 1: and managed to grow. And when you're thinking about the

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Speaker 1: food again, you had mentioned there are no pesticides or

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Speaker 1: herbicides here, so that makes a little bit more difficult

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Speaker 1: to produce this food. And the reason why there are

427
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: no pesticides and herbicides is because those chemicals would have

428
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: affected the air quality. Because although this biospheres atmosphere is

429
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: really large, right, it's small enough where those toxins would

430
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: have built up really quickly and had a very negative

431
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,440
Speaker 1: effect on the health and well being of everybody inside.

432
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:24,360
Speaker 1: I mean, those agents are are problematic for the world

433
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: in large when you're dealing with the world and small

434
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 1: even more so. Again, this is why this is such

435
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,199
Speaker 1: an amazing experiment, because you are saying things at a

436
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: microcosm of of the macrocosmic world. And so when you're

437
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: looking at that first winter, you have al Nino in effect,

438
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: and that means that there's an unusual amount of cloud

439
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 1: cover in southern Arizona, and that is contributing to unexpectedly

440
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: low food production. Yeah, less biomass production, less food. And

441
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: then on top of that again no pesticide, no or beside,

442
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 1: so you're in having to actually deal with mites and

443
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: diseases cutting into your crop production. You don't get that

444
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: pristine modern agricultural hall out of this. Yeah, and then

445
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 1: you've got chickens who are failing to produce sufficient numbers

446
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 1: of eggs, and they and the pigs are consuming a

447
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: lot of the resources. So the biospherians decide that they're

448
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: going to slaughter the farm animals. Now keep in mind

449
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: too that um you know, call calling back maybe to

450
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: an older episode of Real Wilding in which we talked

451
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: about the cascade effect. Once you remove one species, well,

452
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: it's a domino effect because so you can only imagine,

453
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: and this only three thousand species wide world, that if

454
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: you take out some of some of these elements, some

455
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 1: of these animals and these plants they're dying off, then

456
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: that's going to affect everything else. Yeah, because cycles are

457
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: key here. You need you need the nitrogen cycle, the

458
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 1: phosphorus cycle, just the basic add and flow that is

459
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: there's central to Uh. The success of the biosphere needs

460
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: to be in place in biosphere too. And when things

461
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: start falling apart, uh, the center cannot hold nicely done, yes,

462
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: and indeed the center cannot hold and food becomes an issue,

463
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: and there are rumors that maybe the biospherience are smuggling

464
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: in food, especially when Jane Poytner accidentally slices off the

465
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 1: tip of her finger and she has to leave the Biosphere,

466
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: which is another big kerfuffle, right because we've left in

467
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: um and when she does leave it, she returns with

468
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: a double bag, which people say, I bet that's full

469
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 1: of bags of Cheetos and in ho hoes and whatever else. Yeah,

470
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: and I mean she apparently it was not. She claims

471
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: it was not. It was apparently she just said with

472
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:50,880
Speaker 1: some drawings and circuit board something that to that extent um. Yeah,

473
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: the media was really invested in this, and this wasn't

474
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 1: even our modern our news cycle. I mean, imagine if

475
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: they did bios, if Biosphere two had taken place during

476
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: the age of Fox News. I I cannot even imagine

477
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:07,959
Speaker 1: the field day they would have had with this, because

478
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: because everybody was really into this, it was ambitious project.

479
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: You had what you had these well meaning, uh you know,

480
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 1: kind of hippie science guys and gals going into this thing.

481
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: And then you begin to see shortcomings happening. You begin

482
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: to see, uh, things like this person leaving and come

483
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: again with a mysterious bag. So there's all this room

484
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: to go, oh, what are they doing there? There? They

485
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing there there. The system is

486
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: flawed and and then that the schaden Freud effect kicks

487
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: in and you get to set back and uh and

488
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: and have a hearty laugh at this whole project. Yeah,

489
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 1: keep in mind that there were a ton of people

490
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 1: that were outside of the structure looking in because again

491
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: we're talking about glass, and they would observe the bio

492
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: experience and this was like a big deal. There are

493
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 1: a ton of people that were really interested in so

494
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: it's a human zoo and they look in and what

495
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,719
Speaker 1: do they see? But the bio experience are beginning to

496
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: turn orange? Yes, And I kid you not, it sounds

497
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: like it just made that up. Oompa Loompa's to return

498
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: to Willy Wonka. And that has everything to do with

499
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 1: their diet, which was largely sweet potatas. Yeah, of their

500
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: diet the first year it was sweet potatoes. So we're

501
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: talking about a lot of beta caroteen, right, and of

502
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: the fact they consumed was from bananas, and so yeah,

503
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: as as a consequence there can began to turn orange

504
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: can you imagine, you know, I'm sure the media was

505
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: like and now they're turning into Pompa's. It's difficult. It's

506
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: difficult to imagine becoming sick of sweet potatoes, but I'm

507
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: sure it would happen. And it's difficult to imagine turning

508
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: orange because of eating too many of them. But you well,

509
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: and that becomes one of the problems here under the

510
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: biosphere is that you've got that limited calorie restricted diet.

511
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: You have decreased i would say mental health as a result,

512
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: because there's some depression setting in. Um. Here are some statistics.

513
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: Men lost sixteen of their b m I their body

514
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: mass index in six months, women lost eleven percent. Their

515
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: average systolic blood pressure decrease from a hundred nine to

516
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: eighty nine, and their distalic BP decrease from seventy four.

517
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: So these are some pretty big changes happening in their bodies. Yeah,

518
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: and you know, the sources we're looking at didn't really

519
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: go into this as much. But we've talked about what

520
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: happens when an individual is is cut off into a

521
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: solitary confinement environment and this is a rather sprawling complex,

522
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: so it's not you know, one to one with someone

523
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: being in a tiny cell, but still they're engaging with

524
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: the same place and the same people every day, day

525
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: and day while rolling with with with this calor restricted diet,

526
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: with problems with their food supply and other issues that

527
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: will get into. Yeah, and Pointner says that they became

528
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: pretty obsessed with food, or at least she did. And

529
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: she actually has a book called The Human Experiment two

530
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: years in twenty minutes inside Biosphere too, and she talks

531
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: about watching a film right yeah, and and the united

532
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: she find herself not even focusing on the plot or

533
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: the characters. It's about what they're eating, you know, because

534
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: you put yourself in that those shoes, imagining yourself, you know,

535
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: feeling this hunger, and and there you're watching, you know,

536
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: a food fight and a big comedy. That's the way

537
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: I'm imagining it, that it's like classic Hollywood food fight

538
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: and they're just like, throw that pie at me. This

539
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: next description, I think is it's kind of pathetic. She says,

540
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: sometimes we lined up in the second story windows of

541
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: the habitat and took turns peering through binoculars at fat people.

542
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,719
Speaker 1: And then she says, for everyone seemed to overweight to us.

543
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: Then even the slender people who were spurting catch up

544
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: on sausages and shoveling them into their mouths. We were

545
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: culinary voyers. This reminds me of old cartoons where you know,

546
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: you'd have the one character would be starving on the

547
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: desert island and they look at the other one and

548
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: they start picturing a big ham hawk and yeah, yeah, yeah,

549
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: and it seems like that is in a sense sort

550
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: of what's happening. And moreover, they just they're not is uh,

551
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: you know, energy felled this they might be, and so

552
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: the tasks that they have to do take a lot longer. Yeah,

553
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of work to be done because

554
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: again growing your own food, dealing with the animals, maintaining

555
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: the environment, keeping records, and then just just day to

556
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: day toil. And you're having to do all of that

557
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: while rolling with these with this shortage of nourishment. You're right,

558
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: it's like extreme farming. And also you have to to

559
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: keep in mind that the carbon dioxide levels were rising,

560
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: so they were continuously harvesting in sequestering biomass or plants

561
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: all over the facility so they can control that or

562
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: try to And then they would shovel and scrape carbonate

563
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: off their homemade natural CEO to scrubber. So keep that

564
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: in mind with just the regular things that they were

565
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: having to do just to survive. And one of the

566
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: things are having to deal with your is just the

567
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: unpredictability of the physical environment. I mean that's the thing

568
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: about biosphere too. And again keeping in and keep in mind,

569
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: it was such an ambitious project, in such a large,

570
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: sprawling project, again trying to to take the ecosystem, larger

571
00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: ecosystems and contain them and manage them within an enclosed environment.

572
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: It unforeseen consequences are going to take place, things you

573
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly think of. So, for instance, they had to

574
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: deal with a cockroach explosion, their cockroaches everywhere. Crazy ants

575
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: are invading from the outside. They're breaking through your space

576
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: shuttle a ceilant to to get into that environment and

577
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 1: start causing havoc. Yeah, they eventually did um cross the

578
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: silicone seal that was eventually penetrated, and so then you

579
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: have two different biomes uniting with each other, right, which

580
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: you know would obviously affect the integrity of the experiment.

581
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: Um As you said, they have the cockroaches, they those

582
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: on night duty have have the dubious task of collecting

583
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: those cockroaches and other environments and uh feeding them to

584
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: the animals, because again, that's a resource they can't waste.

585
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: That there's some food for the animals that they don't

586
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: have to go out and collect for themselves they're harvest Hey, guys,

587
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: I really need that key to the banana room because

588
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: I think the cockroaches might be getting in there. Well,

589
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: that's the thing that, by the way, we failed to

590
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: mention that that the only locked room in the Biosphere

591
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: two was the banana room because apparently the scent was

592
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: such a siren smell to all of everybody on these

593
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: restricted diets that they had to lock cut up to

594
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: make sure people didn't get up in the Meanwhile, morning

595
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: glory vines are overrunning all of the other plants, including

596
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: the precious food crops yep, and fish too many in number.

597
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: They begin to die off, and that's partly because there's

598
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: a phosphorus trapped in the water system. Yeah, the phosphorus

599
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: cycles out of whack. Yeah, and then those fish start

600
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 1: to clog the oceans filtration systems. Another unforeseen circumstance lack

601
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: of wind resulted in the trees not developing stress would

602
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: to cope with mechanical stress, so they were brittle and

603
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: prone to collapse, which actually later on and we'll talk

604
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: about this in another episode, really helped to inform people

605
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: about ecosystems and how important, uh you know, trees and

606
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: tree canopies are and how they interact with the environment.

607
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: As I mentioned before, nitrous and phosphors cycles are disrupted,

608
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: the nitrous oxide levels actually end up growing high enough

609
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 1: to reduce vitamin B twelve synthesis to a level that

610
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: could impair or damage the brain. And meanwhile a third

611
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: of the flora and fauna wind up just going extinct

612
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: in the biosphere too, including most of the vertebrates and

613
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: all of the pollinating insects. So again, collapse, more and

614
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: more collapse is spiraling out right now, the death knail

615
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: perhaps to this whole endeavor. And keep in mind of

616
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: laughing cas nitrous oxide is tasso, which can crazy, right,

617
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: you have a loss of oxygen. So initially it was

618
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: at which is roughly the same Earth's right, but it

619
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,839
Speaker 1: drops to four and Pointner says it was like playing

620
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 1: atomic hide and seek. They could not figure out how

621
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: they were losing it. They lost seven tons of oxygen,

622
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: and it turns out that that oxygen was reacting with

623
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: the concrete structure. So that was sart of siphoning it

624
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 1: off and leading to gradually and continuously lower levels, so

625
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 1: much so that the biospherians were getting really groggy, they

626
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: had sleep apnea, they couldn't complete sentences, and so finally, um,

627
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: this we need some outside help for this, which caused

628
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: quite a fracture. Yeah, because ultimately reached the point where, hey,

629
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: to keep going, we need outside air, we need we

630
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: need oxygen pumped into biosphere too. Otherwise when we've gotta

631
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:32,760
Speaker 1: we gotta crack, we gotta crack a window. And essentially

632
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:34,399
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing. They're kind of reaching the point

633
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: where you're saying, let's go ahead and crack the window.

634
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: Um by letting by letting in a shifted in oxygen,

635
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: it was brought into the form of a liquid oxygen.

636
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:44,439
Speaker 1: And this is one of those things that happens during

637
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 1: the course they're two years that really ratchets up this

638
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: idea of idealism versus science. Right, So, so essentially you

639
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,720
Speaker 1: have two groups that disagree on how to manage things,

640
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: and you can understand how this fracture just causes were

641
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: more squabbling, right, because again, everyone's hungry, everyone's sluggish, everyone's

642
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: been been stuck in there this long. And meanwhile they're

643
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: also they're also outside stress issues to consider because originally

644
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: this whole thing was budgeted at thirty million, and it

645
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: had already cost or reported two hundred million. So so

646
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: there was a financial aspect of this as well. Right,

647
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: So it's not just the eight of them making these

648
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: decisions autonomously. Autonomously, I want to add, you know, you

649
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: have the management outside. You've got John Allen and others

650
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: who are trying to control this, whose money and vision

651
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,879
Speaker 1: are ultimately at stake in this uh, in this endeavor, right,

652
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: and this kind of adds to those two different factions

653
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 1: or those differences on how things should be managed. So

654
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:48,320
Speaker 1: just consider this, for the last fourteen months of the mission,

655
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:51,439
Speaker 1: the eight crew members, would you know that the two

656
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: different groups would not make eye contact or speak to

657
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: each other unless absolutely necessary. Now I do that if

658
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 1: like a meeting goes more than twenty minutes here, it works,

659
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 1: so I can't really blame them, But imagine for two years,

660
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 1: you know, and imagine this too, that's like losing half

661
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: of your social sphere, right, So think about half of

662
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,479
Speaker 1: all your friends just evaporating. Now, think about you being

663
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,399
Speaker 1: in that biosphere with four people you like and four

664
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 1: people or three people you like, and four people you hate. Yeah,

665
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 1: and like a deep personal hatred, the kind you can

666
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:28,280
Speaker 1: only have for someone after you've you've worked really closely

667
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 1: with them and and and this, and shared vision with

668
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,279
Speaker 1: them and then had a big falling out and we're

669
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 1: unable to escape their presence. Yeah, awkward every single day.

670
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: So apparently one of the crew set up funding for

671
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 1: psychological monitoring and counseling ahead of time. But this experiment

672
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: was rejected by management. And we'll talk a little bit

673
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: more about this, but some of that is tied to

674
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: the idea that this wasn't the most transparent of projects.

675
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: That being said, they stuck it out and the the

676
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: eight crew members all emerged alive through the airlock in

677
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:06,359
Speaker 1: September three, though in two separate groups of four uh,

678
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: not speaking to each other. Everybody was grumpy. Everybody was

679
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 1: probably ready to hit the nearest buffet. But but they

680
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: they did. They stuck it out. They made it to

681
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:18,919
Speaker 1: the end of the experiment. And that's something I feel

682
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 1: like to keep in mind through all this, despite all

683
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: the flaws which we'll get into. I mean, an experiment

684
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: in its essence is not a thing where you set

685
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: out to necessarily reach that success point. It's about two

686
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 1: and you learn from the failures of the experiment as well.

687
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: You learn from the the the unforeseen consequences of the experiment.

688
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: And this was a sprawling experiment. Yeah. Pointer talks about

689
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: this too, and her Ted talk like this was unchartered territory,

690
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: no one had ever done this before. Of course there

691
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: would be failure. Um. So we'll talk more in the

692
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,280
Speaker 1: next episode about some of the stuff that actually spiraled

693
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: out of it that was really advantageous um. But I

694
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: think for now it's probably worth mentioning at After this,

695
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: this phase one of the experiment closed out. It was

696
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: largely ridiculed as this kind of I don't know performance,

697
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 1: Aren't this quasi science? Yeah, I mean there were so

698
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 1: many moving parts through this, so many people involved in it. Um.

699
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 1: There there's plenty of areas to pick away at this,

700
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 1: at the structure of the idea. Because we mentioned the

701
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: CEO to Scrubber, which is a controversial issue that was

702
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 1: supposedly sort of secretly installed, which which you know, there's

703
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: a there's an X on the checklist there. Then there's

704
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: the oxygen having to be brought in. There's that bag

705
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 1: that probably had Twinkies in it that came in. Um,

706
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: there's a there's a criticisms about the the scientific pedigree

707
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,959
Speaker 1: of the individuals that were placed in their criticisms about

708
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,919
Speaker 1: the oversight, criticisms about the record keeping. Um. And then

709
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 1: you start dipping into the history of the Synergist as well,

710
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: and people start saying, well, this sounds a lot like

711
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: a cult. So you're basically have like theater trupy, you know,

712
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 1: environmental cult members and Star Trek uniforms going into this thing.

713
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: How can we take any of it seriously? Well, especially

714
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: when you consider that the founder, John Allen, his pen

715
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: name was John Dolphin, Johnny Dolphin. That really helps there.

716
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean Dolphins and Space and John C.

717
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: Lily and I mean, yeah, we touched a little bit

718
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: about Alan. That is just a character very much a

719
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:31,359
Speaker 1: charismatic leader of a movement with lots of ideas. Uh.

720
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 1: And if you if you were to say, hey, kind

721
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: of sounds like a cult leader. You know, maybe you

722
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,439
Speaker 1: wouldn't be that far off the off the track. Well,

723
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 1: even know we're discussing this earlier. It's probably if it

724
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: was is a cult, it's probably the most productive cult

725
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: in the world. And you've got to look at this

726
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: thing and say, Wow, the fact that they were able

727
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: to come up with us and energize and mobilize enough

728
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: people to do this to pull it off to some

729
00:40:56,160 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: degree is pretty amazing. Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, uh,

730
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: the energy of occult tends to to go astray. But

731
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 1: in this case, the centergist really got a lot of

732
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: things done even before biosphere too. And granted they they

733
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: benefited from some terrific funding as well, but uh, but yeah,

734
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: they Maybe the thing here is that if you're if

735
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: you're gonna do a big project, like there's really a megaproject, uh,

736
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: that that kind of skips ahead of some of the phases.

737
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: You know, It's not like they didn't build a mom

738
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: and pop biosphere. They built an epic biosphere. Maybe you

739
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: need the energy and guidance of a cult like structure

740
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: and a cult like energy to reach that point. So

741
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 1: maybe there should be like a NASA cult formed to

742
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: create the momentum. Yeah, I mean maybe, I mean, certainly

743
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: I could see where it's it's two sides of the

744
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: same coin. It's like, how do you want to get

745
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: to to that point? Do you want to go with

746
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: something that's rigorously scientific but also um, you know, um

747
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: adheres to the limitations of politics? Well, where do you

748
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 1: go with like blank check uh funded cult? I don't know.

749
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: I think that's what's so exciting and frustrating about this

750
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: project is because you could see it had legs. You

751
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 1: could see where it might have if if it had oversight,

752
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: if it had had transparency and um and the management

753
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: was a bit different. Let me put it that way.

754
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: You can see how this thing could have created, um,

755
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: some very intentional studies, long term studies. That being said,

756
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: there was still plenty of accidental science that came from this,

757
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this in the next episode. Indeed,

758
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: if you could have possibly combined the sensibility of the

759
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: synergist movement with a more rigorous structure, a little more

760
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: NASA in there, uh you know, along with the funding,

761
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,240
Speaker 1: who knows what we could have we could have achieved

762
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 1: with this. But as again, as we'll discussed in the

763
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 1: next episode, we really did get a lot out of

764
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:00,120
Speaker 1: Biosphere Too. Uh, even though at the time it is

765
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 1: very much discussed as a failure. At the time, Uh,

766
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: it kind of became the laughing stock in the media

767
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: towards the end. Um, despite all of that, Uh, there

768
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: was there's a lot of good that came out of this. Indeed,

769
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 1: And if you guys are interested in looking at some, um,

770
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: some documentaries on this, I want to recommend the New

771
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 1: York Times. They have a documentary that's like twelve minute

772
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: long documentary. Yeah, it's called Biosphere Too, an American Space Odyssey.

773
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: And then there is a documentary about the actual building

774
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: of Biosphere Too called Well Apples Grow on Mars. Yeah.

775
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, I mean,

776
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: Biosphere Too is something that will be in the history

777
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: books long term. It will come a time when this

778
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: is very much at least a bullet point, a very

779
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:50,879
Speaker 1: strong bullet point in uh the history of humanity as

780
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 1: we uh explored more about how our world works and

781
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 1: attempted to take it beyond Biosphere one. I agree. I

782
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: think it is only now beginning to get its due. Uh.

783
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Hey, In the meantime, while

784
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 1: you're waiting for episode two on this topic, head on

785
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: over to stuff to blow your mind dot com. That's

786
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: where you'll find all of the episodes we've ever done.

787
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: You'll find blog post videos, and you'll also find a

788
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: gallery of Biosphere two images. You'll probably find that linked

789
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: on the front page, but also the landing page for

790
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: this particular episode will include that link. And if you

791
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 1: have some thoughts on this on biospheres or living in

792
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: closed systems, maybe you have submitted yourself to one let

793
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: us know. You can email us at below the mind

794
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

795
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

796
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: dot com