WEBVTT - Two Years and 20 Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.200 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.680 your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.560 and we are sealed inside the Stuff to Blow Your 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:23.000 Mind podcasting chamber right now, and we are going after 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.320 a really fascinating topic and one that that really meshes 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.400 well with our our sealed environment here. Yes, that's right. 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.199 We're doing a little armchair traveling today and we're going 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.199 to travel back to or ninety two or so. But 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.199 before we do that, let's talk about this concept of 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.400 a utopia, a garden of Eden. This is this thing 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.080 that we aspire to. Oh yes, I mean, this is 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.199 an idea that has been with this rageous right that 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.240 there perhaps was a primordial time, an untouched time, where 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.080 everything was was perfect, and that we could maybe recreate 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.960 that through some system, because it seems it seems like 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.080 we have all of these flaws right in in in 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.240 human culture and human society. The way we do things, 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.640 the way we interact with the world. It's it's inherently flawed. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.000 We're on this doom trajectory and there's got to be 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:14.920 something we could do to change at some order. We 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.280 could put on ourselves, some technology we could we could 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.880 aspire to something that would turn things around and save 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.119 us from ourselves and maybe, depending on what your worldview 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.480 is and you and and how you view your mythic history, 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.160 return us to some uh, some previous mode of living 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.679 that was pristine, yeah, replete with waterfalls, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.320 we could do that. We are of course talking about 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:47.640 biosphere too, which how do you explain this? I think 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:52.480 about it as like this burning man fever dream, like 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.880 let's put up an arc in the desert and create 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.400 a utopia. But it's not, in fact a fever dream, 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.840 or may be it was, uh one of the founders 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.600 of this idea's fever dream. It actually came into reality 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.959 in the early nineties and it served as this kind 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.560 of mini earth. Yeah, I mean, it was, in a 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.200 sense kind of a scientific burning Man because because the 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.280 you can certainly make comparisons between the the energy that 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.440 that started each of these endeavors, and while one was 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.880 what one was based in, uh in art and expression 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.720 and have just having a big old party out in 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.720 the middle of nowhere, the oh, there is a scientific endeavor. Yeah, 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.320 and we're talking about this miniature air tight world that 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.800 sprang up in the desert, and we're gonna take a 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.400 look at this in two episodes. Today's episode is going 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.080 to focus more on the architecture and what happened during 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.880 this experiment, um so. And we do want to mention 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.720 that there have been other biospheres built before, mainly in 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.800 the sixties and seventies by Russian and American scientists, but 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.360 those really pale in comparison to the grand er that 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.320 is biosphere too. Yeah, the grandeur is key here because 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.320 this was I mean, it was really a realization of 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.440 ideas that had previously mostly been the domain of conjecture 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.080 and even science fiction. Like I instantly think back to 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.120 n film Silent Running, where you had h all of 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.639 the forest on Earth had been decimated, and you had 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.480 and you had all the ecosystems of the Earth sealed 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.400 off and self contained hemispheres in space looked after by 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.640 Bruce dern in some Robots and and that is a 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.680 really beautiful film with a strong ecological message, but it 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.160 was very much science fiction. But fast forward a couple 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.680 of decades and you see it actually take shape on 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.960 the Earth, and it is an amazing endeavor. It is. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.440 The project was originally conceived and executed by a group 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:52.160 of adventurers, artists, and philosophers known as the Centergists, and 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:57.200 they have the financial backing of Texas billionaire Ed Bass 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.360 and oil magnet, and with that financing, they were actually 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.800 able to bring this this idea to life. Yes. First 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:06.720 of all, Ed Bass is one of two really key 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.000 individuals for this whole project, because of course he had 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.880 the funds to make it happen. Uh, And he's really 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.400 is one of these characters that also makes you rethink 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.159 the term Texas oil billionaire because this is a guy 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.280 you know that that was and is remains very active 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:27.679 and environmentalist and philanthropic endeavors. But the other key individual, uh, 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.240 the other guy that this could not have happened without, 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.360 is one John Allen. And we could really just devote 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.760 a whole podcast that who wanted to to just analyzing 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.120 John Allen because with this guy, you have a Colorado 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.440 School of Minds trained metal orgist in Harvard NBA. All right, 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.360 no big deal, uh, nineteen sixty three, he's uh, he's 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.479 in a Manhattan office building. And the story goes that 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.880 this was following two hallucinogenic experiences with peyote. He looks 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.360 out the window at this uh, this the sprawling metropolis, 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.440 and in sees the air out there, and he realizes 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.440 that he can't open the window to get to that air. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.479 He has this epiphany. Uh. So he quits his job, 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.680 heads out and begins seeking wisdom around the world. Um. 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.000 By ninety seven he's become a self styled esoteric teacher 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.960 in San Francisco, and his students go to New York 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.680 and they set up a theater company. From there, they 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:22.800 go to New Mexico where they start a commune near 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.320 Santa Fe. And eventually he Eat meets add Bass, and 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:30.479 add Bass starts listening to some of his ideas, and uh, 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.400 and his ideas are really impressive. Yeah. I should also 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.080 mention to you that that this group also has an 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:42.160 oceanic research vessel. And all this time there they are 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.760 trying in earnest to be rigorous about a scientific approach 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:51.400 to the environment. And at this time Alan really comes 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.920 up with the basis of this idea of the biosphere. 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.960 He says, quote, there is a crisis of misalignment between 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.120 the biosphere and the technosphere. These seem to be out 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:06.360 of balance a catastrophe. Biosphere too, instead creates a balance 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.800 between biosphere and technosphere. In other words, he's going to 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.120 try to use the technology and and the money here 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:18.919 that to create something of an artificial utopia. There's a 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.680 great deal of interest with the synergists, who later redub 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.839 themselves the Institute for Eco Technics, with not only understanding 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.839 the environment but essentially bottling it up in the same 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.280 way that you have, uh, the idea of a bottled terrarium. Uh. 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.960 And and this is of course, is is looking into 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.080 the future, thinking about the long term survival of the 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.440 human rights, thinking about space exploration, thinking about how do 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.000 we take not just a little of our environment with us, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:47.960 How do we not just take uh, you know, a 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:50.200 portion of it that we consume and it has to 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.440 be replenished. How do we take a self sustaining portion 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.479 of our world with us and and even see other 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.920 worlds with it. Yeah, this really was one of the 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.039 missions of this project. And according to The New York 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.680 Times in and they reported on it, the structure was 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.880 builed as the first large habitat for humans that would 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.560 live and breathe on its own as cut off from 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.560 the Earth. As a spaceship. And again the idea was 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.640 to to have this many atmosphere that could be portable eventually, 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.400 but also to better understand Earth's biosphere or as the 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:28.160 biosphere Ian called it, biosphere one. Yes. Yeah, I also 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.320 want to point out that at a at a conference 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.680 in oracle In, Allan announced his plan to build a 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.480 prototype Mars calling on Earth before the decade was out. 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.320 And he and he he said that the destiny of 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.080 human beings was to see Earth's life into space. In 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.360 the first stop would be a working colony on Mars. 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:48.240 So these are some of the far reaching, ambitious ideas 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.480 that were that were in the heads of John Allen 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.520 and ultimately in the heads of those who, for lack 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.560 of a better word, followed him and and and just 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.840 bought into his vision. Now, let's talk about really where 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.160 the rubber meets the road here when we're talking about 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.920 this building. Okay, because so far we've been talking about 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.760 all these sort of like esoteric ideas of utopia and 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:13.280 biosphere and balancing. But what do you need in order 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.360 to do that? You need an incredibly huge structure. And 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.280 from nineteen eighty seven to ninete this structure was built 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.440 in the snore and desert about thirty miles north of Tucson, 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.760 and we were talking about a seven million, two hundred 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.800 thousand cubic foot sealed glass and space frame structure spread 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.800 over three point one five acres massive. Yeah, and I 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.360 should also add that the original idea is they built 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.920 this thing to laugh. The idea was that rotating crews 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.560 would work here for a century. So one crew comes in, 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.640 then the next crew comes in, and the experiment keeps 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.480 going and going. Uh. You know, in all this, I 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:53.559 keep thinking that like one of the other only other 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.240 minds that comes that comes to my mind when I 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:58.160 when I think of vision, like this is Walt Disney, 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.520 and we know we've talked about his plans for for uh, 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.960 for Walt Disney World and especially for Apcot Center, and 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.720 how ambitious, crazy ambitious those ideas were, and those ideas 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.200 had to be rolled back to meet the realities of business. 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.640 And with Biosphere too, you see a bit of that. 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.520 But they actually they actually got more of that vision 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.599 somewhat accomplished, initially accomplished well, and we'll talk at a 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.000 little bit about this more later, but there had to 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.600 be an immense amount of excitement here because that's you know, 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.079 initially the plan was thirty million dollars to build this, 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.959 but it took two hundred million dollars. With that kind 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.760 of wallet open, you can see how a lot of 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:43.239 people would be interested in jumping on this and contributing 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.480 to it, because you are, in a sense, making history 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.520 with this building and with this plan. And one of 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.520 the things, one of the reasons why it was so 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.920 expensive is because it had to emulate a closed system 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.960 that was energetically open, much like Earth. Right, So in 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:06.880 other words, it's a materially closed system. So plants, for instance, 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.560 biomass can't leave the system, but energy can, right, because 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.600 whether or not it's heated or if it's absorbed um 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.160 in other ways, it can move around in an energetic way. 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.320 And that takes a lot of engineering, a lot of 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.000 know how, and a lot of technology to pull that off. 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.000 And it didn't skimp on bringing in great minds to 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.319 work on this. It wasn't one of these situations where 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.080 it's like a crazy guy building a pyramid out in 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.280 the desert. No, that they brought in some of the 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.280 finest minds to help construct not only the structure itself, 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.800 but then ultimately the environments within it. Indeed, I mean 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:45.320 it really became this unprecedented research tool, a mini Earth 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.800 as much as you could make. All Right, we're gonna 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:50.280 take a quick break, and when we come back, we're 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.920 gonna continue talking about the structure itself and the creation 0:10:54.960 --> 0:11:03.160 of the environments with it. We're back, all right, um 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.440 I I really love the architecture of Biosphere too. Yes, 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.520 it's very beautiful. And if you haven't seen it, or 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.680 haven't seen it recently, go visit our website. I'm going 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:15.400 to make sure that we have a gallery there some 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.000 really stunning images of this place, because yeah, it's it's 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.480 a beautiful building. It's absolute retro futurist. It's got, um 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.480 you know, the geodesic structures, those domes that are inspired 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:32.080 by Buckminster Fuller. It's got even sort of Moorish architecture 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:33.880 to it as well, and some of the I guess 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.800 you would call the lungs of the building. And it 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.559 was designed by a company called Biospheric Design, and again 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.040 they were influenced, um by all of the sort of sixties, 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:50.840 seventy and eightiest retro future visions of what this glass 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.439 beheam of could be. And to me, I kind of 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.760 I even think about it as this futuristic crystal palace. Yeah, 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:58.800 it really does have that kind of looked to it. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.400 I I was looking at again, these images are fabulous 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:03.840 and that you look at them and you see this 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.240 place kind of like emerging out of the desert, but 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.880 just emerging out of time. It's kind of it's it's 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.280 unreal to to look at it. And it was built 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.080 as the world's most air type building. It was designed 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.360 to leak no more than ten percent of its air 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.120 per year, and that is half the rate of the 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:20.840 Space Shuttle. And it's stealed on the bottom by a 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.000 stainless steel liner and on the top by steel and 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.080 glass frame structure. So it really does try to fit 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.720 those parameters really tightly. Because again, this was sort of 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:32.760 if you think about it, this was probably the thing 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.920 that the entire project was hanging on, this ability for 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.600 it to keep its energy steal. Right. Of course, all 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.720 this glass is key because obviously we need it. Again, 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.600 it's thermodynamically open, so we need heat energy energy from 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.360 the sun to actually enter through the glass. Yeah, in 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.160 order to compensate for changes in air volume which should 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.240 be caused by solar heating, right, the expanding atmosphere because 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.920 of the heat and because of those alternating day and 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.560 night temperatures, there were these large dome shape lungs that 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.280 were constructed to deal with that expansion and make sure 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.400 that the exterior didn't fracture to the point that the 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.480 building would lose its integrity in the case of that 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.760 seal that we were talking about. And so in this 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.640 seven million, two hundred thousand cubic foot sealed structure, how 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:18.600 much air do we actually have in there? How much 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.240 soil do we have in there? We have about hundred 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:25.880 and sixty one thousand cubic meters of atmosphere with about 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.480 seventeen thousand meters cubic meters of soil and about one million, 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.640 five hundred thousand liters of fresh water, which doesn't even 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:38.079 account for this big ocean they put in there. Oh, yes, 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:42.480 the artificial sea of biosphere to containing six hundred and 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.720 seventy six thousand gallons or two million, five hundred and 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.480 fifty five thousand, eight hundred ninety four liters uh and 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.520 this was designed to be a coral reef reminiscent of 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.160 the Caribbean and UH and just for future reference. And 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:58.600 you can see this in some of the images that 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.920 they were sharing on this the the ocean is situated 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.439 between the desert in the rainforest. It's kind of a 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.640 buffer zone, a temperature buffer. Yeah. So we've thrown all 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.440 these statistics out at you, and I think you guys 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.760 all have a good idea of how massive the structure was. 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.920 But just imagine yourself on a cliff. Okay, Like you 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.680 look above you and there's this glass dome, and you're 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.400 on this cliff, and you're now looking over at a 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.880 eight hundred fifty square mile coral reef, a four hundred 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.240 fifty square mile mangrove marsh, a nineteen hundred square mile 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:39.800 Amazonian rainforest, hundred square mile savannah grassland, and then oh sure, 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.440 I'll take a fourteen hundred square mile fog desert. Yeah 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.280 that sounds good. Oh, in a little tropical agriculture system 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.160 with a farm, in a human habitat with living quarters. Yeah, 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.600 that's right, because you have the whole agricultural section as well. 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.600 By the way, that rainforest um that was designed by 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.520 Sir Gillian Prance uh then director of the New York 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.640 Botanical Garden and uh as far as the the ocean 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.400 area is concerned. I was designed by Walter A. D 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.360 a geologist at the Smithsonian Institute. Yeah, and there's a 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.680 waterfall in there. It's absolutely gorgeous. And if you look 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.640 at some old footage of some of the Biospherians talking 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.600 about their experience, they well, I'll say it was beautiful. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:23.600 Like That's the thing that stood out most to me 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.520 is just how incredible this environment was. Yeah. I mean 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:29.800 you look at these images and it's it's kind of 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:33.560 like silent running, except more fabulous. Like it's more amazing 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:35.600 looking than some of the sci fi visions that came 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.400 before it. It's it's on par with Wonka Land, except 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:41.800 that the waterfall is not chocolate but water. And we'll 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.800 come back to to Wonka in a bit um. And 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:46.720 you know, it reminds me a bit too. If I 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.840 remember when I was a kid, my family would go 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.840 up to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, which has 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.440 these big I've been there, right, Well, you know they 0:15:55.440 --> 0:16:00.360 have the big enclosed gardens, but but it's not really closed. 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.400 It's my no means of biosphere. But I remember walking 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.160 through it and like sort of imagining that I was 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.520 in a spaceship. It's a little like that. Yeah. Um. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.760 And this is pretty amazing too. It it had something 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.960 like three thousand documented species of plants and animals across 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.080 its five biomes. So we're talking about everything from scorpions 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.360 to microbes, to coral reefs, to crops and pests. Yeah. 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.920 I mean, they really tried to represent actual ecosystems here, 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.120 not just a situation of viol let's have some goats 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.000 to milk, let's have some some chickens to eat, you know, 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.080 or anything like that. It was let's have actual ecosystems. 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.560 These need to be. These need to be the world 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.360 in small Yeah. And if you have any doubt about 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.000 the breath and depth of this project, consider that some 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.320 of these species were grown in greenhouses, but some of 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.440 them were trucked in as entire landscapes. And you had 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:57.240 swaths of tropical rainforest sampled from Venezuela savannah, from French Guiana, 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.240 desert from the Baja Marsh, from the ever Glades, and 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.440 at the suggestion and left us of william S Burrows, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:09.520 bush babies were introduced to supply companion primates. I did 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.160 not I did not run across that in my notes 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.240 that William S Burrows actually contributed to this project. Sure, 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.480 he weighed in it on as well. You want his 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.280 name on the credits list when the scientists start pulling 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.720 things apart later on, right, that's gonna help. Um. Now. 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.000 Jane Poyter, who was one of the biosphereans, and we'll 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.359 talk a little bit more about her later, she said 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.119 that they called it their Garden of Eden on top 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.680 of an aircraft carrier. And that's an app comparison, I think, 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.800 because the the infrastructure required, the technology required for all 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.480 of that, for all these these ecosystems to thrive within 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.720 this contained environment, is pretty extensive. Yeah, because when we're 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.480 talking about that structure below it, we're talking about twenty 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.440 six air handler units in the basement of the technospheres 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.080 they called it, that had the ability to heat and 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.080 cool air and create condensate water for biospheres tooth and 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.520 rain and fog atmospheres. Yeah, underneath you had mazes of pipes, 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:08.639 events water tanks, a huge, huge empty vaps that we 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.360 used to process human waste. Um. Yeah, but of course 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.000 the cooling system because you're having to you're trying to 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.639 keep a sealed greenhouse cool in a desert um and 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.080 that requires a great deal of energy. So it is 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.879 it's like an aircraft carrier, were the infrastructure beneath the 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.760 this magical sci fi eten and you've got electrical power 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.120 supplied to the biosphere from natural gas energy center, which 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.480 is located outside of biosphere too, through air tight penetrations. 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.359 Just in case you were wondering how that was happening, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.040 but still you can you can argue that, I guess 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:46.840 it's geothermically it's geothermically open, so so that's allowed. All right, 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:48.880 So now you have an idea of eating on top 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:50.840 of this aircraft carrier. We're gonna take a quick break 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:52.800 and we get back. We're going to talk about life 0:18:52.800 --> 0:19:01.080 in the biosphere. All right, we're back, and yes, indeed, 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.040 life in the biasphere. Instantly, when you think about Biasphre two, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.800 you can't help but focus on the human aspect of it. 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.960 Those eight individuals that actually went in dressed in their 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.600 kind of star trek looking uniforms and gave some wonderful 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.399 speeches before they did too, and and then had to 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.240 live in there, had to work in there and roll 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.840 with some of the difficulties that ended up popping up. Yeah, 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.479 night to ninety one. They enter for two years in 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.800 twenty minutes, as Jane Pointner says, and uh, all eight 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:38.120 of them hung out together. We're talking about Jane Poytner, 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.439 who was the lead scientist. There was Roy Walford, a 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:47.199 doctor who studied restricted calorie diets, Tkayror McCallum, Linda Leah botanist, 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.159 Abigail Ailing, a marine biologist, Mark Nelson who was in 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.600 charge of the waste recycling systems, Mark von Telo who 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.240 was in charge of those machines, that technosphere, and then 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.439 Sally over student Stone who was the captain of them all. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:05.920 And this was not the first time these individuals met. 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.800 This was a close knit group. They were all biosphereans. Uh. 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.880 They were they were all very much in line with 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.120 the ideas of John Allen uh and UH and they 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.600 had been engaged in this and work leading up to this. 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:22.719 So it's important to know that these these were not 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.320 just chamos taken off the street. That while some of 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.520 them may have engaged in theater in the past, these 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.280 were not just It wasn't a theater troupe that was 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.160 thrown into this. Uh. This Eden on an aircraft carrier. Uh. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.080 These were individuals who were very invested in the idea 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:43.320 and had varying backgrounds that befitted someone that was going 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:45.720 to live in a biosphere for two years. Yeah. And 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.359 you know, if this were a theater troupe that was 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.160 just thrown in there, as the media kind of tried 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.239 to pretend, you know, they wouldn't last for more than 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:56.119 twenty four hours. And I'm not saying anything against theater troupe. 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.840 I'm I'm one of you guys out there, um, one 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:02.000 of of us. But because we can't help, you know, 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.639 Big Brother, the TV series Reality Sensation, when we think 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.240 about this, because that idea was inspired by biosphere too, 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.040 So we think about individuals thrown into this environment. We 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:17.280 think of instantly think about interpersonal conflict and people who 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:19.560 don't know each other having to deal with each other. 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:21.560 And I'm not saying that actors have a lot of 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:26.280 interpersonal but I'm saying there's a huge psychological element to this, 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.600 and that all those biosphereens had to be ready for this, 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.320 and they trained for this in various ways over the 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.760 two years um that this was being put into place, 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.159 and some of them and I believe it was Pointner 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:43.800 in perhaps Sally's silver stone. They also did some some 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.879 closed system trials and lived and tried to work in 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.240 smaller environments to get themselves ready for this. Yeah, and 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.440 by and large, all these individuals went on after biosphere 0:21:55.680 --> 0:22:00.480 to continue to work in in in related areas UM. 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.439 You know, for instance, Mark Nelson continued to work in 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.520 UM in watershed management, environmental engineering. Uh, you know, they 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.160 all stayed within their their wheelhouses. So these were people 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.800 that were invested long term in the disciplines that brought 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.280 them to buy it through the biosphere. Yeah, particularly Jane Potner, 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:18.880 and we can talk about her later, but she's done 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.639 a lot of work in the fields of environmental science 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.639 and space exploration. But so, all right, you get a 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.040 group of people together, you they're all working together, they're fine, 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.560 but you know, they have to deal with the basics, right, 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.359 like food, and this is where things get a bit 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.440 dicey in the biosphere. All right. Now, keep in mind 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.720 that if you you want a pizza in the biosphere, 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:42.720 you're gonna have to make it from scratch. And we're 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:47.879