Over the past two decades, we have continued to ‘digest’ and explore the unique journey we shared and have developed a greater appreciation of why Biosphere 2 was an important laboratory, as well as a life-changing experience for each of us. But Biosphere 2’s accomplishments and relevance to our current ecological crises have never been fully appreciated. Hence, the importance of this expanded second edition of Life Under Glass, because the urgency of biospheric thinking and action can no longer be delayed without deepening the ecological catastrophe already underway.
BECOMING A BIOSPHERIAN
Since the three of us wrote Life Under Glass before we completed the two-year experiment, we decided to leave the book’s original text largely untouched for its historical value. At the time, we didn’t have the final data on most of the research projects underway, but we wrote with the immediacy and urgency of a still unfinished and dramatic experiment. We hope some of the rollercoaster ride of joys, frustrations and, above all, our total immersion and connection to a living world, will touch your hearts and minds. Life Under Glass is a record of how we started to learn to be biospherians, a term we called ourselves as a crew of eight. We realized in the early days of the experiment that our role was to learn from our biosphere, and adjust our actions accordingly to support its vitality, ecosystem functions, and overall health. We did not enter Biosphere 2 having a model of how a biosphere works; we started on day one to learn together.
The eight biospherians followed individual life paths to get to the project site in Oracle, Arizona at what was originally intended to be a quiet, although daring, research endeavor. We joined a small cadre of other biospherian candidates; we worked on the ecological and technical design; we traveled to exotic field sites collecting corals, plants, and animals; we operated prototype systems and even helped with construction while training in the skills required to live inside. The project’s quick pace and high morale was familiar to NASA veterans of the Apollo Project who came to visit. Like them, we were not afraid of making mistakes. We were making history, attempting what was considered impossible. From the project launch in 1984, a research and development complex was soon built and operated to prepare for Biosphere 2. Breaking ground in 1987, hundreds of construction workers, glaziers, engineers, and specialists of all types worked at breakneck pace to complete that massive facility so that we could begin its initial shake-down mission in 1991.
Ultimately, eight of us were selected and coalesced to form a team for undertaking something that no other humans had ever attempted. We were going to be the first crew of the first human-made mini-biosphere for two years. It was a unique opportunity to study global ecology with us taking part as experimenters and part of a co-evolving sustainable living system. We had to carry out daily tasks that would enable our biomes to thrive, and us as well, for our breath, food, and health depended upon them. Although that was the goal of Biosphere 2’s first closure experiment, everyone, including us, understood that it might not be achievable. At early Project Review Committee meetings, the sessions concluded with key managers and consultants enumerating lists of challenges, and sometimes even nightmare scenarios they could envision. Biosphere 2’s initial closure experiment faced daunting odds and plenty of unknowns, but that only strengthened our resolve to figure it out and do whatever it would take to keep our world healthy and biodiverse - and us inside! Ready for anything . . . we hoped!
A LABORATORY FOR THE STUDY OF GLOBAL ECOLOGY
Biosphere 2 was designed as a new kind of ecological laboratory, one in which the fundamental processes of life as well as that of an entire system could be investigated. To accomplish that, the facility needed to be energetically and informationally open (like our global biosphere) and virtually airtight (materially-closed) so that everything could be tracked with great precision. The structure was hailed an engineering marvel because its engineers succeeded in accomplishing daunting goals. Crucially, this included an unprecedented leak rate of less than 1% a month despite more than 20 miles of seams on the space frame roofs that braced against an outside Arizona climate that varied from subfreezing in the winter to well over 100 degrees in the blazing summertime. If Biosphere 2 hadn’t been so tightly sealed, the decline in oxygen or the dramatic daily and seasonal fluxes in carbon dioxide couldn’t have been detected and accurately examined.
Biosphere 2 became an ecological icon, recognizable around the world. Its biomes were tropical (it did not include temperate or polar regions) and its wilderness systems were chosen accordingly to include the biological, chemical, and physical requirements that define each area. To achieve maximum diversity, both terrestrial and aquatic/marine mini-biomes were chosen along with differing ecosystems within each biome to enhance overall biodiversity. Project ecologists gathered about 3,800 species of plants and animals, plus uncountable microbes, fungi, and the other small-in-size but profoundly crucial microbiota in soils and waters that keep our global biosphere healthy and recycling. Because Biosphere 2 was vastly smaller than Earth, elements cycled faster. For example, there was a two to four day residence time of carbon dioxide in Biosphere 2’s atmosphere compared to many years on Earth. John Allen, the inventor of Biosphere 2 and its executive director, presciently called the facility a “cyclotron for the life sciences.” We were able to find things out rapidly, rather than over decades.
The technologies designed by our engineers also had to replace natural forces in order to supply much of what we take for granted since our planetary biosphere does it so reliably and for free; temperature control, rainfall, winds, tides, waves, and also supplement biogeochemical and nutrient cycles. There are no ‘wastes’ in a closed system. There is no dump or drain to dispose of unwanted substances; in fact, all “wastes” contain valuable resources. Thus, our engineering and ecological teams worked closely together to create new kinds of technical support systems that wouldn’t harm life. For example, we made advances with innovative ways of purifying air using soil and plant biofiltration. In the ocean, we used a vacuum pump to make waves instead of centrifugal pumps that can decimate marine microfauna and flora. Wetlands function as the Earth’s kidneys as they absorb and detoxify potential pollutants; so we worked with Dr. Billy Wolverton from NASA to design constructed wetlands to treat and recycle all of our human and domestic animal wastes produced inside Biosphere 2.
In a closed ecological system, our farm had to reach beyond organic standards to succeed in recycling all of its water and nutrients to grow enough food. Everything that came out of the soil had to be returned and we could not use any toxic products since they would build up in our soils and waters. The farm also had to be highly productive on a limited area of about half an acre. Though we did not succeed in growing all of our food during the first two years (we ate some seed stock during the second year inside), the 81% we did grow made Biosphere 2 one of the most productive farms in the world. Improvements made after our first closure mission, including using crops better adapted to the lowered light inside the facility, enabled the second crew to succeed in growing 100% of their food during their experiment in 1994.
The ocean system surpassed nearly all of our advisors’ predictions; we built and sustained the largest coral reef ever created, let alone one in an artificial tank located over a thousand miles from the closest ocean basin, at 3,800 feet above sea level with temperate (not tropical) seasonal sunlight. When the ocean was resurveyed after the two-year experiment, 75% of the individual hard and soft corals had survived and some were reproducing. Even though the Biosphere 2 ocean had to deal with rising carbon dioxide, acidification, and low light levels, it persisted. Our mini-ocean taught us many things, but perhaps the single most important lesson was that it could adapt to new environments.
Many of our friends told us when we were building Biosphere 2, that it was 50 years ahead of its time. If we were to build it now, its purposes would be self-evident. In many ways, they were right.
Today,