WEBVTT - SYSK Live in Nashville: The Biosphere II Experiment 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:06.880 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.200 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.720 Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's not here with us, but 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.759 all of these beautiful people are at the Sherman Horne 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:44.720 Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Man a lot. That was great. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.560 Like I literally can't hear right now? What? 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.960 Oh, all right, everyone I want to talk about I 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.279 can't believe, by the way, that this was earlier this year. 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:58.920 Doesn't it seem like eight years ago? 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.000 It seems like that Blue Oyster Roads. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:04.840 In fact, it was earlier this year. On the morning 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.720 of January fifth, I met Josh at the airport in 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.280 Atlanta at Hartsfield at a departure gate for what would 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:17.760 be our very first ever research field trip after fifteen years, 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.160 and we had a great time. By the way, spoiler, 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.800 the flight was booked for Tucson, Arizona because Tucson is 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:31.280 very close to Oracle, Arizona, specifically thirty two Biosphere Road 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:32.720 in Oracle, Arizona. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.120 Nothing, okay, that's cool, we can work with that. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.720 If you don't know what happened at Biosphere Road, then 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.560 strap in because you're about to hear the story of 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:49.120 the biosphere to experiment. Yes, raise your hand if you 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.440 have heard of this at all, Oh, a. 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:52.080 Couple of people. 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:54.960 That's good. That's about what we like. Has anyone seen 0:01:55.000 --> 0:02:00.160 the documentary Spaceship Earth. It's good you, Oh right, isn't 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:00.559 it great? 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:01.000 Yeah? 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.960 Highly recommend the documentary. And I'll say this about twenty 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.760 more times. Highly recommend you going to visit the biosphere today. 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:10.120 It was really really great. 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:12.399 If you haven't seen the documentary, most of the show 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.760 probably won't make any sense to you, so we probably 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:16.880 should have thought that through. 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:18.720 We'll just talk to you. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:24.359 Yeah, so Biosphere two might make you think, like, wait 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:26.760 a minute, what was Biosphere one? Hadn't heard of it? 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.040 I missed it. Don't worry. You're actually on Biosphere one 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.080 right now, because Biosphere one is planet Earth. Biosphere two 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:40.080 was a highly ambitious project to seal off a little 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.360 piece of Earth from the rest of it and see 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.800 what happened. Basically, Yeah, and. 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:47.680 It could have been a great many things, right depending 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:48.160 on who you ask. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.440 Oh, yes, I have that list right here. It could 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.040 have been an incredibly expensive piece of performance. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.280 Art sort of. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.240 Okay, we'll take that, a massive hub for gathering scientific. 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.520 Day, not as massive as they intended. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:09.639 Right, an audaciously ambitious attempt to replicate Earth for sure. Okay, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.320 the project that created the modern environmental movement. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.480 I like that. I'm the judge of all this. In 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.760 part I will say, Okay, a fraud. 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.160 No, that wasn't a fraud, A failure, sort of failure, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.640 a spectacular success. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.919 Not that either. No, definitely somewhere somewhere in the middle 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:30.520 of those two. 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:32.560 You guys can be the judge of all that yourselves, 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.839 because we're going to tell you all about the Biosphere 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.440 two project, which was born in the eighties. It debuted 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.680 in the early nineties, but the whole thing was rooted 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.280 in the sixties. And you will see that it was 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.320 super duper rooted in the sixties. Because the people involved, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.880 we should just say out front they weren't a cult. 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.920 It's going to seem at various turns that, yeah, guys, 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:56.880 these people are a cult. They were not a cult. 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.320 We did as much research as we possibly could. Yeah, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.240 and they weren't a cult. It just seems like they 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:02.840 were a cult. 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:04.240 They were culty. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.680 Yeah, cult adjacent, cult adjacent. 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.200 It's like when you're reading the real estate ads. It's 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:17.120 like they're not in the cult neighborhood, but they're pretty close. So, 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.560 like you said, it was rooted in the sixties, in 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.479 particular in a city called San Francisco, California. And this 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.640 was during one of their many summers of love that 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.800 they've had over the years. A very charismatic hippie named 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.000 John Allen. He went by the name Johnny Dolphin. I 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.760 refuse to say that. Twice I call him John Allen. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.120 They had nicknames. I was about to say cute, but 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.760 they really weren't that cute. But John Allen was kind 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.160 of a magnet. He was a genius depending on who 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.080 you talked to. Very smart guy, obviously, but he was 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.320 a magnet for kind of like minded people at the 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.680 time in sixties San Francisco, which is to say, super creative, 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.600 very very smart, and as it turns out, also very ambitious, 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.560 which could find the face of other sort of hippie 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:04.880 dippy ish types out there at the time. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.920 Right. And like you said, he was essentially a certified genius. 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.320 He had a master's degree in business from Harvard. Not 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.560 too shabby he had. If you don't mind, I have 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.359 to read this, a certificate in Advanced Physiological Systems for 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.800 Engineers from University of Michigan. Sounds made up, but apparently 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.440 it's legit, and he had a four A driven. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:31.440 I thought you were going to say he had a 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.279 certificate in Advanced Physiological Systems for engineers from the back 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.200 of his cereal, because that's what it owns. 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.080 It definitely sounds like the kind of thing you would 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.760 get at a strip mall university, you know what I mean. 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.960 He was also trained as a metallurgist. He was a 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.600 management consultant. He was, like I said, super smart guy. 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:51.880 He was. 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:53.960 He had a lot of kind of famous hippi dippy 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:59.200 creative smart friends like Williams Burrows, Buckminster Fuller in particular, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.440 who had he would have a pretty outsized influence on 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.960 John Allen and this project that we're going to talk 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.479 about in a couple of ways. One was the idea 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.040 of synergy that Bucky Fuller was really into, and as 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.960 you will learn with Biosphere too, synergy was a big, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:16.680 big part of things, or that was supposed to be 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:21.040 at least and the geodesic dome, which everyone knows is 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:26.719 Bucky Fuller's sort of you know, pet design pipe dream 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:28.240 that became a reality. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.480 Yeah, for sure, they incorporated it into the biosphere, that's right. 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.200 So this group that formed around John Allen, that was 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.560 not a cult. They were hanging out in San Francisco. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.719 They were into creating art and doing performance pieces, and 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.400 they would put on these odd plays under the name 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.680 the Theater of All Possibilities. And I don't mean odd 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:54.080 like as an occasional I mean like odd plays really 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.520 tough to watch because you're watching adults use their imagination 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.320 and that is just uncomfortable to watch. And they did 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.400 it a lot like that was kind of their thing, 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.000 so much so they took it on the road. The 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.920 touring company was called the Caravan of Dreams. And you 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.600 can't say either of those names without going like. 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.680 This, I know, because they're written in an arc on 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.640 every poster of So they were they were doing these 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.520 little and some of these are in the documentaries that 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.920 show some of their little performance art pieces, and it's 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.720 really something they really they say things like free movement 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.680 and stuff like that, you know. But they were in 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.320 San Francisco in the sixties and then left San Francisco, California, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.160 and like nineteen sixty eight because it had gotten too commercial. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.040 They were a hard core Okay that these are how 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.720 sort of out there that these people were. And they 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.720 moved to New Mexico out in the middle of nowhere 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.520 and formed a little not a cult, they formed a 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.600 sort of a communeish kind of thing called the Synergia Ranch. 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.440 Yeah, and so they're they kind of expanded their horizons. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.280 They still put on odd performance pieces and plays. 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:06.440 They also not. 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.200 Do that, No, they it was really in their stay. 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:09.920 They felt the call. 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.280 Yeah. They also started building things too, like they got 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.280 interested in just making things with their own hands. And 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.720 a really good example of what they could do is 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.320 called the research vessel Heraclitis. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.280 Yeah. So here's the thing with the synergy Ins. They 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.560 were all really smart. But it's not like they took 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:33.440 an old boat to make this research vessel and they 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.640 sand it down the deck and restained it and kind 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:38.840 of spruced it up a bit like I could. Well 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.360 I couldn't do that either, Actually I could try to. 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.840 They built from scratch a ship, not a boat like 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:51.040 a ship, and they weren't shipbuilders, they weren't architects. They 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.000 figured out how to do it like this is kind 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.560 of how ambitious and smart they were. There was a 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.080 woman there who led the I guess architectural side of things, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.880 who was not an architect, named Margaret Augustine, who's going 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.120 to come come back to not haunts, but she'll come 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.520 back a couple of times. Is she the one back there? 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.880 But they were super smart and they built this ship 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:15.800 that is like still sailing today. 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.040 Yeah, I mean it has been for fifty years basically, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.880 and they again they built it from scratch, no knowledge 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:23.880 of shipbuilding. And it was in that kind of like 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:28.200 can do spirit that the biosphere project was born. And 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.440 the whole idea was to build this self sustaining habitat 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:33.960 that was closed off from the rest of Earth that 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.440 could sustain human life, very important, and to use it 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:43.640 to study this new field called biospherics, which is creating 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.760 closed systems to study Earth's ecosystems in kind of minute detail. 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.400 And it was new because they had essentially made it up, 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.080 but the whole thing had merit because at this time, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.080 in like the early eighties, scientists around the world were 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.480 starting to notice that Earth was getting out of whack 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.720 in a lot of unsettling ways and had kind of 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.680 concluded that if we didn't figure out what to do 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.280 about that, things would be very bad for life on 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.880 Earth very soon. And spoiler alert, we did figure out 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:14.760 what to do about it, we didn't do it, and 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.360 now we're all doomed. Just FYI. 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:26.120 So to study something like Earth's ecosystem, like very complex stuff, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:27.600 there's a couple of ways you can go about it. 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.280 You can get in a lab and you can bring 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.720 stuff in and you can study it there, and in 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.040 that case you're going to get really precise measurements and 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.240 really precise data, but it's not out in the real world, 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.320 so it's you sort of get what you get. The 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:42.840 other way to do is to go out in the 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.400 real world and study stuff, and people had been doing 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.400 both for a very long time, and it's always been 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.040 that trade off for science, Like you go out in 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.400 the real world and you're going to get real, like 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.559 more natural results, but the data is not going to 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.000 be as accurate because you don't have all your toys 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:01.319 out there necessarily sure, And what bios sphere offered was 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.000 basically the chance to kind of take the best of 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:05.920 both worlds and do both all that once. 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.720 Yeah, and also because it was kind of compact in size, 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.800 stuff that happened out on biosphere one over the course 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.520 of very long time scales happened much shorter in biosphere 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.880 two because it was tiny, so you could actually track 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.199 carbon isotopes as it made it through the carbon cycle, 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.560 which is kind of useful, and it would make a 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:30.720 bitch and test bed for offerth habitation on Mars. Yeah, 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.280 which they predicted what happen by two thousand and five. 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.600 A little bit off right there yet, but like here's 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.880 one example of sort of the ideas that they think 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.640 could spring from this was they thought those and we'll 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.160 meet all the biospherians soon enough. Spoiler alert, that's what 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.280 they were called. They went from synergi ins to biospherians, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.360 but one was named Linda Lee. She was a botanist 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.760 and what she wanted to accomplish there one of the things, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.040 at least was to figure out how little tissue that 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.520 you could get, like how cells that you could collect 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:06.200 and still yield a viable plant. And the idea being like, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.560 one day maybe we can have like a jungle in 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.840 the size of a shoebox that like jets and stuff 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:13.840 like add water and you get a jungle kind of thing. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.600 Yeah, she even brought her own shoebox inside it. Being 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.000 nineteen ninety one, it was an La Gear shoebox. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:26.079 Did you okay, Gear? That was a nice surprise. I 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.040 thought I thought that was off the dome. It's still great, thanks, okay. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:35.880 So if you put all this stuff together, this is 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:40.280 like a really good idea that the Synergians had, and 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.600 they were just the kind of people to do it, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.320 as we've seen. But you can really argue that the 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.000 project would not have happened had a guy named Ed 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.160 Bass not been a member of the group, and he 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.280 had been since I think his early twenty because he 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.640 joined in nineteen seventy four. And the reason he was 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.720 so important is because he was a billionaire. 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.160 Yeah, specifically because you know, this sing was going to 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.400 require a lot of money, as we'll learn. But he 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:05.720 was the son of a guy named Perry Bass, and 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.160 Perry Bass was at the time one of the richest 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.800 dudes in the United States. He was a billionaire. He 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:16.080 was a Texas oil tycoon, and somehow had one son 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:21.679 that became an environmentalist. I don't know if he was 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:23.800 like the shame of the family. I do know that 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.280 that Thanksgiving was probably a little awkward when he brought 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:32.680 up this idea to Pops. I think Perry was probably like, son, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.040 you're going to do what you're going to get? How 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.680 many millions for a bios something? Why can't you start 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.200 a minor league baseball team like your brother Bobby? And 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:45.199 that's Perry Mass. 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:46.760 That was a great Perry Bass. 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:55.559 Everybody indeed, but Ed Bass was in and he funded 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.599 the thing to the tune of between one hundred and 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:04.320 fifty and two hundred million dollars nineteen what eighty something dollars. Yeah, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.360 well it's like you're double that now, yeah, all right, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:11.200 double So we're usually more accurate in our updated inflation conversion. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.640 So he was. Actually he'd financed a lot of projects 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.120 for the group. They had this thing where he would 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.240 buy like a plot of land somewhere in the world 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.960 and they would like build something on it or improve 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.600 it somehow, And there's still stuff around today. There's the 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.480 Hotel Veyra in Katmandu. It's a hotel they own. There's 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.720 the October Gallery in London. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:34.800 Our gallery, yep. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.440 And so they called it the ecopreneurial spirit, so like 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.280 they were hippies, but they weren't shy about making money too, 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.040 and that's what this whole biosphere project was in part 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:47.400 to Ed bass. 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.200 For sure, Yeah, because he thought, all right, here's what 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.680 we're gonna do. We're gonna launch this massive science project, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.240 which I think ended up being at the time the 0:14:55.360 --> 0:15:00.280 single largest privately funded science project in human history. And 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:01.880 he said, but here's how we can make a little 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.120 scratch off this, A little little cheese. What do you 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:05.960 kids say these days? 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:07.840 What else? Bread? I think they say bread. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:20.600 Is bread back, little bread, Little Sosamolians. Sure, little Nashi, Yeah, nashtag, nashtag, nashtag, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.840 ecopreneurial nice, all right, nailed it. Jerry cut that out, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.480 did not nail it. So his idea was, here's what 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:30.320 we're gonna do. We're gonna start this big project and 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.080 we're gonna eventually come up with all these all this 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.280 great data and these science ideas that we can patent, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.800 and then one day when we need to live on Mars, 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.200 NASA is going to go, hey, guys, how much to 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.400 license that jungle in a box you came up with? 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.040 And Ed bassa just sit back and cackle and make 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:49.920 a ton of money. So that was one way to 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.840 make money. And then they had another great idea to 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:53.280 make money. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.800 Right, Yeah, they were going to charge tourists twelve ninety 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.280 five to come gawk at the people who are sealed 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.640 off in the Biosphere facility. And they did. 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.720 It's right, it's all glass. You can just peer in 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.480 and make fun of them all day long. Kids. 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.240 So they formed a venture or an LLC I guess, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:14.440 called Space Biosphere Ventures, And in true Synergian fashion, all 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.040 these hippies who had no experience being CEOs and directors 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.000 of a large, multi million dollar corporation were now exactly 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.120 that that's right, and they set about getting to work 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.240 like there was an architect named Phil Hawes, and I 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.280 believe he pulled out every techie style he could think 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.160 of to create this place. Chuck likes it. 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:35.880 It's amazing. 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.920 It looks like the headquarters to Heaven from a movie 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.400 in the eighties. It's it's what it always struck me, 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.040 as you know, that's exactly what it's like. There's like 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.560 barrel roofs, there's that geodesic dome. The thing that really 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:51.760 gets it for me is everything is made out of 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:56.040 this like shiny powder coated aluminum tubing that really locks 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.200 it into like nineteen ninety and that's exactly what it 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:00.680 looks like still to It's. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:06.000 Like Buck Rogers in the twentieth century or their Disney's 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.000 vision of you know, of tomorrow Land, basically. 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.840 Very much so it's very much like that. That stuff moldy. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:18.119 Yeah, put a pin in that. So the plan, the 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.960 original plan was for Biosphere two to run for one 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:25.240 hundred years, and like every couple of years or so, 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.159 just cycling a new team of Biasparians to take the 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.280 place of the old They would go into some like airlock, 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.919 they would swap places. They would keep it sealed because 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.520 we'll stress out a bunch. The whole point was to 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.000 keep this thing sealed, like if the problem happened, they 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:39.840 couldn't be like, well, let's just open up the doors 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.080 and bring some stuff in to help us along. They 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:43.560 really wanted to see what it would be like, and 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:44.920 the only way to do that was to seal it 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.000 up tight. So one hundred years was the original goal. 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.920 News spread around the world. People were seriously jazzed. I 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:54.639 have no idea how I missed this because I was 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.200 like early college at the time. I knew nothing about 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.320 it somehow, except my only thing I can think. As 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.680 I was in early college at the time, I wasn't 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.520 center around watching the news. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:07.880 how do you think it's going good? 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:15.280 I think he's going quite well so far. Oh yeah, okay, 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.800 Well then that means we have to take a message break, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.040 so please bear with us. That's right, because we'll be 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:20.560 right back. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:35.800 Sish, stuffy jaws, shop soft your s. 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:41.720 We're back, everybody. 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:46.000 You guys can thank Jerry for that. 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.640 You go to don't buy your stuff at the post office, 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.320 sleep on this mattress or buy the was it the 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:58.359 twenty twelve Camra? 0:18:58.840 --> 0:18:59.040 Yes? 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.160 Oh oh you guys still hear that one? 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.439 Anyone? Some of the old ones? Are you? 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.480 I don't know what salesperson made that forever deal? 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.320 That was quite a deal. 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:14.320 Yeah, that won't go away, all right? So finally we're 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:19.440 back everyone, Thanks for coming. Finally, finally, finally, On September 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.359 twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, eight people, four men and 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.000 four women who we will meet very shortly called the Biospherians, 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.120 began their first what was to be a two year 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:33.640 mission of the one hundred year Experiment and were sealed 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.640 off this big press thing they wore, these Mork from 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.600 Orc spacesuit. 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.359 Jumpsuit things, very very weird. 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.119 For real, like broad shoulders, cinched at the waist. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.760 They're like, don't forget we left San Francisco for New 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.960 Mexico in the late sixties. That's how hardcore we are. 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.080 That's right. I just want to drive that home. And 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.280 I think also somebody who's playing the flute. 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.040 As these so floutist if I'm not mistaken, the kind 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:00.880 of when you watch the it's kind of funny because 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.720 they couldn't get the door to seal it first, and 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.439 everyone was like, oh, that's the whole point now, that 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.439 they couldn't open it. That's what it was. Yeah, it 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.560 was two sealed and they were all just standing there 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.040 kind of like this. But they got in. They sealed 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:18.160 themselves in, and here were the eight biosperians. 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.560 Oh me, uh, I knew it was me. I'm just teething. 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.320 First up is Mark Nelson. We mentioned him first because 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:30.000 he was, I guess considered the captain of the team, 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.160 mostly because he was the truest believer of this group 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.960 of true believers, because they had selected from the group 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.919 of synergians they didn't like go find the greatest scientists 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.880 in the world or like astronauts or anything. They just said, Hey, 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.000 you seem enthusiastic. I like the way you do the 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.719 free body movement stuff. Get in there, Get in this 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.040 red jumpsuit. That is seriously, who this group of eight 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:55.680 people were. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:01.160 That's right, you could be our Ryan Tannehill. He's not here, 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.959 There's no way, no, he's got football to play this weekend. 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.760 Abigail Alling was the next person we're gonna mention. She 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.199 was a marine biologist. Jane Pointer is next. She was 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.480 in charge of the farm and the farm equipment and 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.720 stuff like that, and she was in the documentary. You 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.440 will see. It's very controversial because Jane Pointer actually is 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.879 the only Bisparian to leave what you weren't supposed to do. 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.600 During the experiment. She had an accident where she cut 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.200 off part of her finger in a rice huller. 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:33.760 I think I'll do it. 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.239 Whatever that is apparently got a whole rice and I 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:38.120 just thought it came in a. 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.879 Bag with a little piece of finger in it. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:41.880 Yeah, exactly. 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.320 It's the lucky bag. That means you get a million dollars. 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:47.560 Don't add too much water because that thing becomes a 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:48.359 full finger. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:50.920 It turns into a Dinosaurs preface. 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.119 But it was very controversial when it happened, because you know, 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:57.439