2 Years Inside a Living Lab--Is It Science or a Stunt? : Environment: An eight-person crew will enter Biosphere II, a huge, high-tech greenhouse, on Thursday.
At sunrise on Thursday, four men and four women will don red jumpsuits, share a hug with their friends in Mission Control and leave the world behind. If all goes well, they will leave the Earth behind for two years.
The eight are not climbing aboard a space shuttle, although their language and nomenclature are deliberately evocative of the heyday of NASA. But they are embarking on an adventure that is in some ways bolder than the first manned space flight.
As the first light of day breaks across the red Sonoran Desert and the nearby Santa Catalina Mountains, this close-knit group of eight will enter a magnificent greenhouse called Biosphere II and seal the door behind them.
For two years, they will breathe recycled air, drink recycled water and grow all their own food. The only things that will enter their temporary home will be sunlight, electricity and electronic communications. They will be as isolated as if their desert retreat were located on the plains of Mars--the site where they dream of eventually building a new and improved model.
By learning more about the complex interactions within Biosphere II, the researchers hope to learn how to improve stewardship of the Earth itself--Biosphere I, in their parlance. They also hope to show how to build a self-sustaining community that could be used in a spaceship or on the surface of another planet.
The audacity of their venture is emphasized by a simple fact: Previously, the largest closed ecosystems that have survived for more than a few days are softball-sized glass globes, containing only a small species of shrimp, some algae and a few microorganisms, developed at the University of Hawaii.
In its half-dozen years of planning and building, the project has been heavily criticized as a pseudoscientific theme park run by a group of entrepreneurs and hobbyists who linger only on the fringes of science. But even if the biospherians were weighted with doctoral degrees, the appropriateness of their mission would still come under severe questioning.
The closest analogy to Biosphere II might be a Jules Verne novel, where men who had never even built an automobile, much less an airplane, constructed a spaceship and climbed aboard for the first test flight. They “are trying to run before they can walk,” said ecologist Basset Maguire of the University of Texas.
Maguire and others argue that it would have been more sensible--and more scientific--to begin with just a few species of plants and animals to see how they interact with each other before going on to more complicated versions. With its 4,000 plant, animal and insect species, critics argue, Biosphere II is far too complex for any controlled, scientific results to be obtained.
More critically, that complexity could cause large segments of the population to die off, turning the interior of the structure into what the “biospherians” themselves jokingly call “green slime.” At the very least, that would mean they would have to end the two-year experiment and start over. At worst, it could completely discredit the project and force a permanent shutdown.
But for a visitor who has driven the 35 miles north from Tucson on U.S. 89 and Arizona 77, criticisms fade into the background. Biosphere II may be two years late and more than $100 million over its original budget, but here it is, in all its splendor. The scientific neophytes, undeniably, have put together a marvelously detailed, meticulously crafted and visually appealing edifice.
Critics will no longer have to speculate about what will happen inside Biosphere II. They can watch and see for themselves.
Biosphere II covers 3.15 acres, roughly the size of three football fields placed side by side. At its tallest end, it rises 85 feet above the ground, and its four-plus acres of glass enclose a volume of 7.2 million cubic feet.
Stepping into its air lock from the barren desert is almost like stepping into another world. The air is warm and humid, although cooling breezes flow from strategically placed vents. The five wilderness biomes, or ecosystems--rain forest, ocean, marsh, savanna and desert--fill the bulk of the structure, their lush green foliage a stark contrast to the dormant grass and shrubs outside. The eerie sighing of the wave-making machine on the ocean permeates every corner of the building like an immense mechanical lung breathing life into it.
The wilderness areas do the bulk of the work of Biosphere II, removing pollutants from the air, soaking up carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, purifying the water. They also provide a living laboratory where biospherians both inside and outside the greenhouse will be able to study the interactions of various species in unprecedented detail.
“It’s the best finishing school an ecologist could ever have,” said Peter Warshall of the University of Arizona, one of the principal scientific consultants. “It’s one thing to sit in an office and think about (how an ecosystem works). It’s another thing to come out here and get your hands dirty and try to make it work.”
The biospherians’ own ecosystem is the intensive agriculture biome, a half-acre farm where they will grow virtually all their food. It consists of 18 garden plots ranging in size from 500 square feet to almost 950 square feet. To comfortably feed eight people, biospherian Jane Poynter hopes to jam three crops a year into each plot and achieve an efficiency about 11 times as great as that of a typical American farm.
The biospherians will also raise chickens, pygmy pigs, pygmy goats and tilapia, a fish species that will live in rice tanks. The animals will provide milk, eggs and an occasional meal.
They will grow earthworms and feed them to the tilapia to speed their growth. “We’ll have 50 pounds of fish a year,” said Bernd Zabel. “That gives us a meal of fish once a month as a nice bonus to our rice production.”
The final biome is the human habitat--which project officials call a miniature city. It contains two-room apartments for each biospherian, offices, workshops, laboratories, a medical clinic, a library, a gym and a communal kitchen. Carpets and wall coverings are made of wool to minimize chemical contamination of the air.
But perhaps the most unexpected component of Biosphere II lies underground. Here, under 6 to 10 feet of soil, lies an industrial complex that would do justice to the engine room of a battleship.
Massive refrigeration systems using outside cooling towers chill the air and water in Biosphere II to maintain maximum temperatures of about 85 degrees in summer and 65 degrees in winter. “If we were to lose the ability to cool, in half an hour on a sunny day the temperature would quickly rise to about 140 degrees,” said chief engineer William Dempster.
Those fans also force the air through soil, where microorganisms and natural soil activity remove pollutants. Other equipment in the basement includes the high-pressure apparatus for producing mist-clouds in the rain forest, pumps to circulate water around the structure, the wave-making machine and algae scrubbers for the ocean, and literally miles of pipes. Energy for all this equipment comes from a 5.2-megawatt generator, big enough to power a small town.
The basement also contains tunnels connecting to two “lungs,” domes containing huge inflatable rubber pillows that allow the air inside Biosphere II to expand as it heats up in summer. Without these buffers, the increased air pressure would literally blow the windows out of their frames.
Once the door closes behind them, the biospherians’ lives will be rather straightforward. Their activities and physical conditions will be regularly monitored via TV cameras and telephone conversations.
They will spend about four hours each day working on the farm and maintaining the ecosystems and another four hours on scientific experiments. The rest of their time will theoretically be their own--for movies (piped in from the outside), television, hobbies, exercise, whatever. But it seems likely that most will spend more than four hours on the necessary tasks of growing food and maintaining the ecological equilibrium. The challenge, said Carl N. Hodges, director of the Environmental Research Laboratory at the University of Arizona, the prime scientific contractor, “is to design it so that we don’t work everybody to death.”
As Biosphere II has neared completion, it has been the subject of a growing torrent of criticism.
Some charge that the biospherians are neophyte scientists who have few academic credentials, no experience, and are on the flaky side. John Allen, who conceived and directs Biosphere II, has spearheaded a number of idiosyncratic projects, including a commune in Santa Fe, an experimental theater and cultural center in Ft. Worth, an ocean-going, concrete-hulled research vessel and an “environmentally friendly” hotel and conference center in Katmandu.
Critics have also questioned the credentials of Biosphere II’s architect, Margaret Augustine, who received her degree from the Institute of Ecotechnics, an unaccredited “environmental think tank” in London created by Allen. Financing for Biosphere II and Allen’s other projects has been provided by a Texas millionaire, Edward P. Bass, who was a member of the Santa Fe commune and who owns Space Biospheres Ventures, the parent company of Biosphere II.
Moreover, some argue, these brash communards have co-opted legitimate scientists, seducing them with research funds in return for help in designing and constructing Biosphere II.
The participation of these respected researchers in such a pseudoscientific project, pontificated the Village Voice recently, raises “serious and disturbing questions.” These scientists, critics charge, are little more than “window dressing” to give credibility to the nonscientific efforts of the biospherians.
Counters Warshall: “I’m amazed how certain parts of the scientific community have responded so vehemently with so little knowledge. I think you would expect scientists to ask a lot more questions before they have an opinion one way or another. But people have been forming an opinion on (Biosphere II) without finding out what is going on. These people haven’t even asked to see our research plan.”
And Environmental Research Laboratory systems biologist Robert J. Frye said he was deeply distressed by “the implication that bad science has gone on or that I, as a consultant to this, am a whore to SBV.”
The most commonly cited potential problem is an insufficiency of carbon dioxide, because there are far more plants than animals in the structure. In a perfectly balanced system, the plants take up carbon dioxide produced by animals and produce oxygen. The animals take up oxygen produced by the plants and give off carbon dioxide. If there are not enough animals, the plants’ growth will be stunted or they will die.
Computer models by former ERL researcher David Stumpf suggested that carbon dioxide levels could fall too low during summer to support plant growth. Stumpf has charged that Allen simply rejected the results from the computer model, taking it on faith that the species inside will reach an acceptable equilibrium.
Most believe that many of the plants and perhaps even some of the animals in Biosphere II will die during the two-year closure. The question is how many.
Linda Leigh, one of the eight biospherians and who has been in charge of its flora, estimates that perhaps 20% of the 4,000 species will die. At the opposite extreme, ecologist Howard T. Odum predicts that only 20% of the species will survive. If certain critical species do die out, Biosphere II’s freezers contain plant tissue that can be nursed into plants through a process known as micropropagation.
If too many plants do die out, Augustine said recently, the two-year experiment will be aborted and they will begin again with a different mix of species.
Even if the biosphere reaches an ecological balance and meets its scientific goals, the question remains: Is the project economically feasible?
Space Biospheres Ventures is unlikely to get any money from NASA. Virtually everyone except the biospherians themselves agrees that it would simply be too expensive to establish another biosphere in orbit or on Mars. The costs of launching the soil and water would be astronomical--although many of its components could presumably be manufactured on site on Mars.
But Allen also has more down-to-Earth objectives in mind. He said the company already has developed a raft of technological innovations, such as environment-friendly soil- and water-purification systems, that it expects to license. SBV has already filed 50 patent applications for such systems.
It is also marketing a $500 prototype air purifier, suitable for offices, that removes cigarette smoke and other pollutants by drawing air through specially chosen potted plants.
SBV officials have always said that they would like to build other biospheres in other cities. Reports have surfaced that SBV has been negotiating with the Dunes Hotel to build a mini-biosphere as a tourist attraction on the Las Vegas Strip.
Biosphere II is already becoming a tourist attraction. As many as 600,000 tourists will have visited the site before the closure this week, and some SBV officials have envisioned annual attendance of 1 million--at $9.50 per head. SBV has opened a small hotel and restaurant at Sunspace Ranch, a former conference center that is the site of Biosphere II.
Soft-drink vending machines dot the site, and a souvenir shop is in what was formerly a test module. Plans filed with the Pinal County zoning board earlier this year call for commercial development of 300 acres around Biosphere II, including “ecologically sensitive” RV parks, a hotel-conference center and an “environmentally correct” golf course.
Some critics have charged that Biosphere II is little more than a science-fiction Disneyland. Perhaps they are correct, but the biospherians and their backers believe this is no Fantasyland.
Answers to the Big Questions
According to tour guides, the most common questions tourists ask about the life of the biospherians are: How will they handle personal hygiene in a paperless society? Are they paid? If somebody dies, will the body be recycled? And will there be sex?
Bidets provide the answer to the first problem. Biospherians will also rely on washable cotton cloths, and the women will use sea sponges instead of tampons. The biospherians are paid by direct deposit, and no, a body will not be recycled. An air lock makes it possible to remove a dead or seriously injured staffer.
As for sex, the answer is almost certainly yes, but what they do on their own time “is their own business,” said information director Kathleen Dyhr. Reproduction is strongly discouraged, however. All the biospherians are single.
Life in the Biosphere
The five wilderness biomes (ecosystems) recycle air and water for the humans who live in Biosphere II. THE RAIN FOREST
Designer: Botanist Ghillean Prance, director of the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London.
Environment: Patterned on an Amazonian jungle, the rain forest is the highest point in the structure. Twenty-foot-tall trees shelter the 300 species in the forest. Around the outer edges, a ginger and banana belt protects the rain forest denizens, which include bush babies and lemurs, from the afternoon sunlight. A bamboo grove located between the ocean and the rain forest protects it from ocean salt spray.
THE SAVANNA
Designer: Peter Warshall of the University of Arizona.
Environment: The savanna has grassland plants and animals from Africa, South America and Australia. A gallery forest of tall acacia trees produce gums from their bark that will be eaten by galagoes, small primates. A persimmon and fig grove will sustain the galagoes, hummingbirds and nectar-eating bats. Waving fields of grass in both the wet and dry grasslands will be especially important because they can continue to grow during the bright Arizona summer, taking up carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen. Fish, toads and aquatic insects make their home in the tropical stream that flows through the savanna and into the marsh below.
THE MARSH
Designer: Marine biologist Walter Adey of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
Environment: It was scooped up virtually intact in the Florida Everglades and transported to Arizona in 25 specially fitted trucks. It contains mangroves and other plants, insects, frogs, turtles and crabs. It is divided into six zones of increasing salinity by virtually invisible dams. Depth sensors and motors control two sets of overlapping tidal flows that bring a salty “drink” to the marsh twice a day.
THE OCEAN
Designer: Also developed by Adey.
Environment: The marsh empties into the 1-million-gallon, 25-foot-deep ocean, which was started with 100,000 gallons of ocean water trucked in from La Jolla, then completed with local water and a complex commercial salt mixture called “Instant Ocean.” A coral reef was imported from the Caribbean and the water was stocked with more than 1,000 species of flora and fauna, including living corals, parrotfish, starfish and anemones. Essential wave action is supplied by a vacuum-powered wave-making machine that operates every 11 seconds. The ocean water is cleaned and oxygenated by hidden banks of algae-based scrubbers.
THE DESERT
Designer: Ecologist Tony Burgess of the U.S. Geological Survey and Warshall.
Environment: It was modeled on the coastal fog desert of Baja California. Its plants are adapted to high humidity but low rainfall, and grow most vigorously in the winter when many of the other plants in the structure are dormant. Lizards, tortoises are primary inhabitants.
