Exploring Biosphere 2

Tucson was the ideal place to locate Biosphere 2, an experiment to replicate Earth (Biosphere 1) on a small scale (3.15 acres). The ultimate test was to see how humans were affected by this man-made world within a world environment. The glass and steel, air-tight complex contains a million-gallon ocean and living coral reef, a rain forest, a marsh and desert.

Two groups of people lived there at two different times completely dependent upon their enclosed enviroment. They raised their own food, had animals, and even had 100 different varieties of insects. No one entered the complex during those two periods and no one left, with the exception of one woman who accidently severed her finger. The first group of eight lived in Bio 2 for two years, while the second group of seven stayed for only six months. One of the outcomes of the experiment was that the plants had been over fertilzed, and living organisms gobbled up the oxygen to the point that the amount of oxygen being pumped into the complex had to be increased.