In 1984, the company announced it was going to build an airtight structure inside of which ecosystems would thrive, supplying a group of people with air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat.Īs Biosphere 2 took shape in the desert, it racked up headlines (“ Desert Dreamers Build a Man-Made World” reported this newspaper). They gained the support of Ed Bass, the scion of a wealthy Texas family who became chairman of a company called Space Biospheres Ventures. They began dreaming of merging ecology and technology into a new form. Biosphere 2 might have some lessons to offer about managing Biosphere 1 - our planet. And yet, 25 years on, it’s an experiment worth rediscovering. The project would later be dismissed as a folly and a waste of effort. No one had ever built a sealed ecological world as big as Biosphere 2, and no one had ever survived so long inside one. That break-in effectively marked the end of one of the strangest experiments in the history of science. As outdoor air rushed in, they made their way to the ventilation system, where they smashed some glass panels. They pulled open five of Biosphere 2’s doors and broke their seals. They were determined to bring the mission to an end. Later, after they were arrested, they told reporters that they feared for the safety of the people inside. Van Thillo had recently emerged from a two-year stay in Biosphere 2. The three-acre complex contained a miniature rain forest, a mangrove, a desert and a coral reef - along with seven people who had been sealed inside for a month. They made their way to a looming monument of geodesic domes and pyramids known as Biosphere 2. Before dawn on April 4, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo slipped across the foothills of Arizona’s Santa Catalina Mountains.
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