8 Scientists Locked Into Biosphere for 2-Year Test

Eight scientists Thursday were locked into a sealed environment where they plan to stay until 1993, saying they dream of a future when humans will become “custodians of our world.”

The biospherians, as they like to call themselves, donned colorful astronaut-style costumes Wednesday as they celebrated their last day of freedom. On Thursday, wearing futuristic black uniforms, they smiled and waved to onlookers and were sealed inside a 3.15-acre geodesic-framed compound called Biosphere II.

Before stepping through an air lock, several said they hoped that the high-tech project would pave the way to a more environmentally safe future.

Crew member Mark Nelson, 44, said: “I have had a vision that man could change from being a desert-maker into a builder of oases.”

The 45-minute ceremony included prayers from a Tibetan monk and a sun dance by Dan Old Elk, a Sioux from Montana who presented each crew member with a braided sprig of sweet grass from Canada.

Edward P. Bass, the Texas millionaire who bankrolled the project with up to $150 million, invoked the visions of Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright brothers.

“Today we gather at a new instrument . . . to explore the mysteries of our very own home planet,” Bass said.

Crew member Abigail Alling, 31, her voice quavering, evoked the sometimes mystical bent of the project’s organizers: “By necessity, we biospherians walk in as custodians of our world and bring past and future together.”

At 8:18 a.m., the eight exchanged quick hugs and kisses with relatives and project officials, stepped through an air-lock door, waved through a window and disappeared inside.

The four men and four women, ranging in age from 27 to 67, will try to replicate the Earth’s environment--raising their own food and recycling all air, water and wastes--as part of a test of space-colonization technology.

Each crew member is likely to spend about four hours daily on farming and other chores to maintain the complicated machinery driving the biosphere. Another four hours a day will go to scientific work.

The crew is hoping to stay inside for two years, barring serious illness or other calamity.