WEBVTT - Under the Dome-like Thing 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.240 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.360 show that looks at the future and says, the sun 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.639 is always shining and the air smells like warm rubier 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.840 and the towels are also fluffy. I'm Jonathan Strickland and 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.280 I'm Joe McCormick. And we don't have Lauren in the 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.800 studio today. She's actually taking the day off, but she'll 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.120 be back for future episodes, so don't worry about that now, Joe, 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.800 I understand that you wanted to talk about a couple 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:42.320 of movies. Um, something about running quietly or silent running. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.280 So that's the way I know. That's the movie about 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:51.080 the Jamaican Bob sled team, right yeah, yeah, Um, a 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.760 really jaunty song. It was just lots of fun. They 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.960 had a great Jamaican version of Talking Heads Wild Wildlife. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.200 It's great. Oh yeah, uh, no, way that that was 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.160 a great movie. A cool running you're thinking of, but um, 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:10.160 silent running. It was a movie from the seventies. Oh yes, 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.680 the science fiction environmental horror kind of yeah yeah. Bruce 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.560 dern Um and uh one of the things that's featured 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.679 in this movie is it's got a bunch of spaceships 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.880 that are out in orbit around the planets Saturn, and 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.759 they've got forests in them. In fact, they're lists in space. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.240 They're the only place that has forests at that time, because, 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.160 as I recall, part of the plot of that movie 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.920 is that all the plant life on Earth has died. Yeah, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.440 I think I think part of the plot is that 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.840 they're they're going to use these forests that are being 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:47.000 preserved on spaceships to sort of reforest the Earth later. Um, 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.840 then later on there's there's a big conflict, but that's 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.800 just part of the premise. And so that's a really 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.800 interesting concept that you could have a forest that's not 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:02.200 on the Earth. I mean, why not? Yeah, Yeah, like 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.360 the idea, what is a forest need? Well, there's quite 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.360 a few things. Obviously, you need energy. You have to 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.440 have some sort of energy coming into the system to 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.720 provide the energy for the plants to grow. You would 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.360 need some form of nutrients for the plants you consume, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.720 like carbon dioxide and water basically, yeah, probably some other 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.519 probably some kind of soil nutrients, right, some source soil nutrients. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.360 I mean, even if you're going hydroponic, you have to 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.720 have something, right, it's not uh, you know, the water 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.600 and sunlight or facsimile of sunlight wouldn't be quite enough. 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.079 So yeah, you'd have to provide a lot of those 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.200 same sort of things that you would find here on Earth. 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.520 There's no reason, you know, automatically, why you can't have 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.160 a forest somewhere else, assuming that you have access to 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.359 these basic resources. So how would we make a forest 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.760 in space to to have one like this movie? Well, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.240 I'd say the answer to that movie could be another 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:58.720 great movie, a Polyshore classic known as Biodome. By great movie, 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.640 you mean one of the movies that has one of 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.440 the lowest ratings from critics ever like it often in 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.320 there's critics worst films ever made, lest you see it like, 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.160 often paired with with the phrase literally the worst movie 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.919 of all time, right right, which is it's up against 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.000 some stiff competition. But yeah, I have I have not 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.560 seen this film. Well I actually haven't either, but I'm 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.760 aware of the concept. Yeah, I've I've certainly heard the 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.640 pop culture references to it, and I read the synopsis 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.720 and that was enough for me. Yeah. So, but the 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.800 idea biodome, so here The story is not about space. 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:41.040 It's about constructing an artificial structure of some sort here 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:46.400 on Earth to house various types of environments or biomas. 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.760 The idea that we would have under one sealed roof 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:55.480 where there's no exchange of um of anything other than 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:01.560 energy from the interior to the excellent exchange of matter. Yeah. Yeah. Well, 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.560 when I say matter, then I have to also say 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.000 that matter in all its forms, right, not just solid matter, 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.440 but gases as well, so or and even liquids. You're 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.440 not supposed to get water from outside. The idea is 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.080 that everything is supposed to be completely self contained and 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.720 be sort of a miniature version of what the Earth is, 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.280 because if you look at the Earth, it has what 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.560 we call closure from at least one aspect, which is 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.799 that matter aspect. Yeah, the material aspect. So the Earth 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.479 has energy going in and energy coming out. It's got 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.800 sunlight coming in um and and that's basically the source 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.440 of all the life on Earth is that energy. Maybe 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:43.280 you could make an exception for like hydrothermal like bacteria 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.800 that live at the bottom of the ocean, maybe UM. 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.760 But but by and large, pretty much all life on 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.800 Earth comes from the sun. Um. And then you've got 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.400 energy going out also, which is just radiant heat basically, 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.400 and maybe you could say like the light that gets 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.120 reflected back off of the Earth. So the idea here 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.880 being that that energy can come in and out of 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.880 the system. But by and large, matter is pretty much 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.599 what we have here and it's what we're gonna have 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.360 in the future. It's not going anywhere except I mean, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.320 I suppose you could counting meteors and stuff like that, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.400 but that that's an extremely tiny Yeah, it's a minuscule 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.440 It's so so tiny that we couldn't even really express 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.440 it in a meaningful percentage. Same thing for the matter 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.040 that we shoot off into space. If we, for example, 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.159 the fact that we landed a lunar lander on the 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.720 surface of the Moon and left a lunar rover on there, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.480 or the Mars rovers like we're cross pollinating, that there's 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.839 such that. Yeah, that represents such an incredibly tiny amount 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.360 of mass compared to the rest of Earth that you 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.560 can safely say that matter is a closed system. Yeah, 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.440 And this is why some people might think about the 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.720 Earth as a spaceship, right that it's it's something that's 0:05:55.720 --> 0:06:01.039 traveling through space and it's it's materially contained. Well, how 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.760 small do you think we could make a materially contained system? So, 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.200 in other words, we would have to create some form 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.640 of system that would have regenerative life support on it. Yeah, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.000 for life. I left that part out. I mean, obviously 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.400 you could just have like an asteroid hurdling through space. 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.680 But if we wanted to live somewhere, how small could 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.000 that materially contain system be. Could it be smaller than 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.960 a planet? Could it be small enough to say, be 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.120 something that we could launch? So, in other words, could 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.159 we have a ship kind of like the ones that 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.279 are in silent running, but ones that derive most of 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.440 their life support from the forests that are on board 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.320 that ship. As opposed to being a preservation method, this 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.960 would actually be a life support system, right, because you 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.640 could think about the ecosystems that we have here on 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.839 Earth as a sort of life support system for this 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.040 spaceship that we live on the planet. Um. We get 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.920 all the material energy we need from it, so the 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.880 chemical energy we get from food, um, and it recycles 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.080 our waste in a way that doesn't just like accumulate 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.960 and kill us, right right, which I mean obviously these 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.440 are these are intrinsic for life to work. Right. If 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.520 you didn't have this kind of um symbiotic relationship between 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.840 multiple organisms and ecosystems, then life would not be possible 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.320 for any prolonged time. It would eventually it would end 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.440 up creating toxins that would kill itself unless it's somehow 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:31.640 adapted to be resistant to those toxins. So it's it's 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.600 by studying the Earth where we can learn more about 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.400 how these different systems work with each other that allow 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:44.400 us to kind of hypothesize about regenerative life support systems, 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.640 which is going to be absolutely necessary if we ever 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.160 want to explore space on any meaningful level beyond just 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.600 the immediate surroundings. Right. Well, I mean supplies run out, 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:57.840 don't they? Yeah, I mean we're if we're going to 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.160 load up a spaceship and travel to a dis don't star. Um. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:06.200 How much oxygen can you pack to breathe? How much 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:11.760 food can you to take with you? Um? Eventually, if 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.680 you're talking about long term exploration, you're going to have 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.720 to find a way to make the molecules that you 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.760 take with you work more than once. Right, And this 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.800 is absolutely important because of course the further away you go, 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:25.400 the more you have to take with you. The more 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.800 you take with you, the heavier your ship is. The 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.360 heavier your ship is, the more fuel you make or 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.440 you need so that you can get to where you're going, 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.360 more fuel you need to get where you're going, the 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.200 heavier your ship is. It becomes this really cyclical problem. 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.800 So it's absolutely imperative to find a solution to it. Okay, 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:47.720 so we're imagining this spaceship that has um bio regenerative 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.800 compact capacity. It has an environment that takes care of 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.400 its own matter, that feeds itself and recycles its own waste. 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.720 Has anybody ever actually done an experiment to see if 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.880 we can build something like this, and obviously it would 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.040 have to be sort of in a in a sealed, 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.160 closed experimental chamber to simulate what it would be like 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.400 to be in a spaceship. The answer to that question 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:12.960 is yes, several people have attempted to do this. And 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.520 in fact, the fact I already knew that spoiler, well 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.320 that's okay, I actually knew that Silent Running wasn't about 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:24.880 the Jamaican Bob's led team, So uh, peak behind the curtain. Um, yeah, 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.559 I know the the there are lots of people who 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.760 have tried this. In fact, the early stages were well 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:32.520 before we got to a point where we were going 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.960 to seal someone into a room and say have fun breathing. Uh. 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.000 It was because because we had to prove certain things 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.600 were actually possible, For example, the direct relationship between breathing 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:49.119 out carbon dioxide and having plants absorbed that and release oxygen. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.800 No one was really sure if we could create an 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:57.520 artificial environment where that would become a viable possibility. Because 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.760 we knew that that was the actual process us of 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:07.079 respiration and um, the relationship between plant life and animal life, 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.160 but we weren't sure that we could leverage that, and 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.240 so there were a lot of experiments early on before 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.960 we got to even this sort of enclosed space that 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.960 were necessary, but that led to more extreme experiments. Yeah. 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.600 The first I've heard of, the first person I've heard 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.080 of to propose this idea is an old friend of ours, 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:31.640 Konstantine Silkovski. Remember that name, sky guy behind the space elevator, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:39.400 right right. Um, so he was a he was a Russians. Yeah, 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.320 he was absolutely a genius idea box. Um, he was 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.360 a Russian. Da Vinci and in in nineteen o three, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.160 he had this paper the Exploration of Cosmic Space by 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.280 Means of Reaction Devices, So that that's sort of proposed 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.600 that you could put humans and plants in a in 0:10:55.679 --> 0:11:02.200 a symbiotic relationship to sustain space exploration. And the Soviets, 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.200 because at the time that we're talking about where the 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.600 space race comes into play, it was the Soviet Union. 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.200 The Soviets were very much interested in exploring this in 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.880 a very real way, not just they did they build 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:18.559 some kind of crazy bunker, So of course they did. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.280 They built three of them in fact, or really they 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.920 built one, and then they kept on expanding the project. 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:29.480 The original one was really to explore a bioregenerative life 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:34.120 support system specifically for cosmonauts, which probably would come into 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.400 play for something like a lunar colony or Martian colony 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.000 down the line, be really useful for some place like that. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:46.400 Uh and UH. It was originally a twelve cubic meter 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.600 space that could hold one person, hold and support one 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.000 person and uh. At that time it was a sealed chamber, 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.560 and they had a second chamber that was connected to 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.360 it via air ducts that contained a special kind of 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.119 algae in it. And that algae would end up generating 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.319 the oxygen necessary for the person inside to breathe. They 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.400 called this a system that achieved twenty percent closure, meaning 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.360 that of the needs of that human being were met 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:19.840 by the actual environment itself. However, that's small potatoes, right 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.959 that you still your needs. Yeah, so they still needed 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.520 to have food and water brought into the person because 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.480 they're just there was no way of recycling the water 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.640 necessarily at that point or there, and the algae, while useful, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.040 was not tasty. I was going to say, I'd imagine 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.240 that while I'm sure you can sustain human life eating 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.320 only algae, that's got to take a psychological toll. Yeah, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.480 I'm not sure how. When you say sustain, I think 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.880 maybe you'd stay alive, but you wouldn't want to keep 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.679 being alive, Like, I don't know that. I don't know 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.559 that health wise it would be a very wise uh 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.160 choice over a long term. But at any rate, they 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.480 were able to boot set up to between eight and 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:07.320 eight closure, and they did that through creating water recycling systems. Now, 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:12.400 water recycling systems are incredibly important in space exploration today. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.760 In fact, if you read about the water recycling systems 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.720 aboard the International Space Station. They are phenomenal. They're capturing 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.040 water in just about every way you can imagine and 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.959 then recycling it. So that would become something that continues 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:27.480 to be important, and we'll probably chat a little more 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.880 about that later. And now, these early stages of the 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.800 Soviet bios project, that's what it was called. They were 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.480 in the nineteen sixties, right, and so a few years 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:42.120 after the first experiment they decided to expand it a 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:47.680 little bit. They ended up creating a slightly more sophisticated 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.600 bios UH system. They added the second chamber, which they 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:56.720 called the phytotron, and this was allowing the the person 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.520 inside the main chamber to grow higher levels of plants, 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.200 mainly wheat and a few other vegetables were possible, and 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.520 the idea was that this way they could get more 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.760 of their food from that closed system, as well as 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.880 the oxygen that they needed to breathe. And because they're 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.520 recycling more of their water, they could didn't need to 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:20.480 replenish water as frequently, So that ended up being a 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:25.560 pretty big advance in the bios approach. But then they 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.280 decided to go all out with BIOS three Last three 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.520 nineteen seventy two. Right yep, nineteen seventy two cost one 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.640 million of roubles, which at that time was about one 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:41.800 million US dollars. Yeah, so, um, it was underground, undergrown bunker, 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.600 so already pretty exciting. Uh well, but maybe bunker is 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:48.920 misleading because you don't usually think of a bunker as 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:55.120 being um like sealed stainless steelmatically steal um. So what 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.120 they're trying to do here is what we were just 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.600 talking about, is to seal off all exchange of gases. 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.480 Now you can, it's hard to do this perfectly. In fact, 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.960 we we still can't really do it perfectly, but they 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.040 were trying to do the best they could to make 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.200 sure air wasn't getting in or out. They also wanted 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.160 to prevent any sort of pathogens from passing through and 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.360 either making the the well the cosmonaut equivalence, because this 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.760 really was for the cosmonaut program, although the I don't 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:25.760 think that's necessarily what they called the people who were 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:30.040 inside this buyos. But anyway, they wanted to limit any 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.040 pathogen exchange. So they would also hold these experiments chiefly 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.320 in the winter, which cut down a lot of it, 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.080 and also after the first experiment, they decided to increase 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:45.080 the air pressure slightly on the inside of this. Uh 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:49.600 this this hermetically sealed metal box. You can think of it. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.320 It's a huge box, I mean comparatively speaking, But they 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.680 tried to increase the air pressure so that that would 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.240 also keep pathogens out by you know, it's kind of 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:04.200 pressing outwards. Yeah, positive, exactly exactly. So that was really 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.040 important because they didn't want that to end up compromising 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.960 the experiment. It was actually fourteen by nine by two 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.160 and a half meters in size, which is about three 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.440 fifteen cubic meters of space, and had four compartments. Each 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.360 compartment had a doorway that could lead out to the 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.040 outside world that could be opened within about twenty seconds 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.160 in case of emergency. Although none of those doors, to 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.280 my knowledge, where ever needed. No one ever needed to 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.840 escape the BIOS three, But I mean it was important 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.120 that they had that obviously, in case something did go 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.440 castrophically wrong. Um. Each of the doors also had a 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:44.840 seal on it screening of biodome. Uh. Now, the BIOS 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:50.280 three program was fortunately over by the time Biodome came out. Um, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:52.800 but yeah, they each of the doors also had rubber 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.320 gaskets it would seal against the um the doorway. That way, 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.960 you could actually seal off one compartment from the other 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.800 three compartments, and originally um one compartment was used for 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.680 just the crew, that's the crew's work and living quarters. Uh. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.280 The other three compartments were meant for well, two of 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.520 them were originally were phytotron's where they could grow food 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.600 and the and the third one was for algae. Now 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.919 it's important noting something that's a little bit odd about 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:25.879 this environment because using fightertron's they're using artificial light to 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.840 sustain the plants they're growing, which makes perfect sense because 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.320 if you're going out in space, then you're pretty much 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.399 you're going to have to create artificial light. You're just 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.800 especially if you're traveling further out of the Solar System 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.080 and you're not able to angle your ships that you 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.280 can harness the Sun's energy for your to to you know, 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.439 feed your plants, to give your plants the energy they 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.080 need to grow. So it for the purposes of a 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.000 program that could eventually, at least in theory, be poored 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.800 it over to space exploration, it made perfect sense that 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.360 they had to use artificial lighting. That is something else 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.000 that we'll talk about a little bit later to when 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.280 we talk about the pros and cons of this approach, 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:07.399 or at least I'll be able to chat about a 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.000 little bit. But the other interesting thing I thought was 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.040 that after the first experiment, they decided that the third 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.600 chamber where they had put the algae uh was really needed. 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.200 It needed to be converted over to higher plants. That 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.520 in fact, three chambers with higher plants would provide enough 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.400 oxygen for the entire crew, but more importantly, would also 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.919 provide enough food because they found out that just with 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.879 two compartments and the algae there, there wasn't enough food 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.920 being produced, enough edible material being produced for the crew 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.760 to just you know, sustain themselves on that. And there 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.840 were still some there's still some issues with the food 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.000 as I as I understand Joe, well, I mean, there 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.080 are a lot of issues with food when you're talking 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.360 about trying to create a system that's closed to outside 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:57.520 material interference. For one thing, Um, we don't always think 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.160 about this, but when you're growing food, not all all 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.439 of the material that grows is edible. I mean, what 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.520 do you so let's say you're trying to grow wheat, 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.080 I mean a huge part of the wheat plant is 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:13.600 not the grain that's delicious, it's this stalk junk. But 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:15.800 what are you going to do with that? Um? So 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.200 that that presents a problem. UM. So you could try 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.080 to say, like breed wheat that has a shorter stalk 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.399 or something like that, but you're still going to be 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.200 left with. Um these problems of materials that are hard 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.320 to deal with in this environment because you can't eat them, 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.520 and you don't want to just throw them away, you know, 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.199 because they're part of your material wealth. Uh. And and 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.720 so that's one problem. Another problem, not really a problem, 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.800 but in this particular experiment, you know, they didn't achieve 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:50.200 perfect closure from the outside because they had to import, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.199 as I'm to understand, some canned meat because they were 0:19:55.080 --> 0:20:00.720 participants would not go without their their canned meat, good 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:05.159 old cane meat. Uh. They had sixty they had sixty 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.359 three square meters where that for a growing space. That 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.480 that's how much space there was aside for growing, which 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.679 is about si square feet. And they found that that 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.639 was enough to supply them with all the oxygen they 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.280 would need for the three crew members. There there was 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.440 only enough room for three people. UM. And they did 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:27.919 this experiment three times, and so it's not like this 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.040 was an enormous space. But then typically your spacecraft tend 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.080 to have fairly small cruise as well, so again it's 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.359 not like it's that um that far off from the 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.800 way the space exploration race went, So it made sense 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.399 from that perspective. Now, granted, this does mean that you 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.639 would have to dedicate a certain amount of space in 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:52.639 your spacecraft for growing things, and that alone is you know, 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.280 that's a huge consideration obviously, right, I mean spaces is 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.600 the space within a spacecraft is at a premium space. 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:01.800 Outside of a spacecraft not so much. There's a lot 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.480 of it, but inside of spacecraft not some there's there's 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.680 quite a little bit of it. Yes, thank you Joe 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.080 for backing me up on that line. It is Grinn 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.920 and Ammy. So I was just thinking about space and 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.360 how it's inherently funny. It's well's always funny when you're 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:20.600 talking about because we are using the same word for 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.360 to describe the the amount of area around you within 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.360 a spacecraft as well as the region that's outside the spacecraft. 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.119 So there it gets to be a little bit of 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.840 confusion of terms. But anyway, what was interesting at least 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.560 according to a paper that we both read. Yeah, we 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:37.959 want to give a shout out to this. It's an 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.159 older paper. We're using it for historical information. So it 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.960 was from the journal Bioscience. It's called BIOS three Siberian 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:49.840 Experiments and Bioregenerative Life Support, and that's by Salisbury, Gittlson, 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:54.480 and Lissowski. Uh and so that's where a lot of 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.640 our history on this is coming from. Yeah, the according 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.520 to that paper, the outcome was pretty interesting. The crew 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.920 reportedly suffered no ill effects, at least not physically, due 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:09.120 to being put up in this little chamber for extended periods. 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.399 You know, they held up, They held up all right, 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:16.080 and they did see that the micro flora on the skin, 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.680 mucous membranes, and the intestines of the people who were 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:24.000 inside the cruise that were inside these the bios experiments 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:29.440 they changed significantly. However, there were no pathological effects, meaning 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:31.600 that no one got sick from it. However, it's just 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:32.920 one of the things that you look at the skin, 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.679 you're like, well, things have definitely changed. One of the 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.280 qualifiers there is yet um. One of the things that 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.240 we don't really know is what the long term effects 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:49.639 of having changes to the the flora, you know, flora 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.520 that inhabit our bodies, so like microflora on the skin, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.240 but also say, like gut flora. What happens when, um, 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.199 a long term environmental change, say a trip on a 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:03.240 spacecraft fundamentally changes your gut flora. Is that going to 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.680 cause you illness or or damage in the long run 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.439 in digestion? Right, Because these these guys and women there 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:12.919 were there was at least one woman in this experiment 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.800 and one of the three experiments. UM, they were in 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.920 the this isolation for like months at a time, but 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.800 a true space exploration mission could last last several months, 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:28.760