land purchase, staff and consultant costs, design, construction, and operation of the experiment over the course of 10 years. This is equivalent to the cost of one modern military jet.
A NEW ERA
Geologists are now actively debating whether we are entering a new era due to the massive effects that a growing human population, industry and agriculture has had, and continues to have, on the biosphere. The new era would be called the Anthropocene because humans now drive many crucial trends on Earth. A few astute observers of Biosphere 2, like Wired magazine’s Kevin Kelly, saw it as a forerunner of our modern biosphere where machines and human activities are interwoven with the natural world. To be successful in these early Anthropocene years, humanity has an overriding necessity to act thoughtfully and intelligently, becoming stewards of ourselves, and thus the health of our biosphere that sustains us. Biosphere 2 can be regarded as an Anthropocene experiment in its attempt to integrate appropriate technology with nature. Living in Biosphere 2 demanded that we stretch our human intelligence and capacities to consciously cooperate with our biosphere.
Vladimir Vernadsky, the great Russian biogeochemist who created our modern understanding of the biosphere, also thought evolution’s new era would be the creation of a “noosphere” (a sphere of intelligence) in response to the geological power of human industry. He asserted that the noosphere will arise when scientific, technical, and biospheric intelligence harmonize so that technics reinforces life and life reinforces technics in an evolutionarily sustainable way. Our Russian colleagues, the leaders in closed ecological systems research, thought Biosphere 2 should have been named “Noosphere 1.” We can now appreciate Biosphere 2 as an early laboratory experiment which foreshadowed a future when humans start to intelligently operate our “spaceship Earth.” Then, we will start to transform our current downward trajectory into a regenerative, creative and evolving shared biospheric future.
WE ALL LIVE IN AND SHARE ONE BIOSPHERE
As we reflect on our years in Biosphere 2, it is clear that we were changed by it. Our bodily experience of being so closely interconnected with our biosphere was both remarkable and exhilarating. We understood on a profound level that our health and that of Biosphere 2 were the same. We were intensely aware that every action, everything we did, had immediate consequences. Our bodies understood and rejoiced in our cooperation with and dependence on all life. We had our responsibilities to work cooperatively with our living systems so as to maximize their well-being. We also understood the need to keep the support technologies functioning and upgrade them to be efficient, to accomplish as much research as possible in order to learn how our biosphere functioned. We also needed to become better farmers so we could eat more and alleviate the constant hunger accompanying our super-healthy but calorie-restricted diet. But the best, most fulfilling, and extraordinary experience was knowing, at a deep cellular level, that we were metabolically and consciously part of our living biosphere.
The fact that Biosphere 2 reached a worldwide audience, bringing into clear focus what a biosphere is, has been its lasting legacy. People were gripped as they followed the real-time drama we biospherians faced in keeping our world healthy. This helped puncture the fantasy that the environment is somehow outside of us and that humans are separate from nature. It was the beginning of a desperately needed planetary awakening. We all live in a biosphere and we are part of it! We are excited and hopeful now that this awakening is spreading so rapidly and widely around the planet.
We know that being chosen for Biosphere 2’s first epic exploration was a gift for each of us. Even more importantly, we know that we are also biospherians of planet Earth, and so are you. Many have already changed their perspective and relationship to our biosphere which is overheating, burning, flooding, and whose overall health is rapidly declining. The warnings are clear: mass extinction of species, loss of much of the biomic diversity which powers our biosphere, the catastrophe-producing changes to our climate system, pollution and degradation of our soils and waters, the loss of natural regions and the beauty of Earth’s biosphere. We are facing, for the first time, the real danger of so damaging Earth that our civilization and even our survival are threatened unless we reverse this accelerating destruction. Waking up to this crisis, and rising to the challenge of being responsible Earth biospherians, will enrich our lives. The crucial first steps are to realize that our biosphere is our home and our life-support system; and then to act, and act quickly, to restore it.
Our deepest desire is that Biosphere 2’s legacy informs, inspires and offers insights into how to achieve this positive future.
– Abigail Alling, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone February, 2020
At 8:15 AM on September 26, 1991, eight researchers entered Biosphere 2 to begin its first two-year mission of discovery.
“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.”
– Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1991
WE HAD TESTED THE AIRLOCK many times before in trial runs, but this time was for real. On a bright September morning, at about 8:15 AM, the eight of us—the first crew of biospherians—stepped into the airlock chamber to begin a journey some of us had been anticipating for seven long years. We had just waved farewell to hundreds of people gathered to see us off before we ducked into this unique compartment. The airlock was about the size of a cargo container, with gray, stainless steel walls, and two doors that had portholes like a ship. One door opened out into Earth and the opposite opened into the Biosphere.
As the metal door swung shut, helping hands tried to push down the large lever on the outside to seal it tight, our last help from outside hands for the next two years. Inside, we pushed down on our side of the lever, but the door didn’t close. After a few moments, Mark Van Thillo called to those outside to step back, and with one decisive swing, brought the lever down to seal the door.
A few seconds later, we opened the inner door and entered Biosphere 2. Closure had been accomplished; our self-reliance had begun. The two-year challenge stretched out ahead of us, two years in which we hoped we would not need to go back through that door into the Arizona desert beyond it. With no one and nothing coming in, what was inside was all we had.
DAY OF CLOSURE
This historic day in our lives, the day of closure, was September 26, 1991. By 6:30 AM everyone—including the eight biospherians, the last-minute work crews, family, friends, and staff—had left the Biosphere and the doors were closed. The moment when an engineer closed the airlock door, our glass world became separate from Earth. No free flow of atmosphere, people, plants or animals, food or supplies would pass between Earth and the inside of the Biosphere again. All the preparations were over. From that moment on, the Biosphere became a distinct and separate entity, materially isolated from the rest of the universe except for energy and information flows. The physical boundaries were marked by the glass and steel space frames above, and the stainless steel liner below.
While we biospherians were taking part in the closing ceremonies in the plaza just outside the airlock, the Biosphere was already on its own. When we headed back towards the airlock at 8:15, we inserted the final, crucial ingredient into the experiment: the eight humans. Crucial because we were the ones who would either succeed or fail in making this