Biosphere 2

In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, BioSphere 2 was built, just north of Tucson near Oracle. It had a rather chequered history, never really reaching the lofty heights of its creators. It is an impressive engineering feat and looks very scifi-ish. Liz and I spent New Year's Eve here in 1994/95. The site was originally an executive retreat for Motorola and the lavish accommodations were maintained back then as a motel. Since then, a number of owners have come and gone, most of the time it was Columbia University. Last year, the whole area was bought by a property developer, and BioSphere 2 is being leased by the Universty of Arizona for various experiments. The cool upshot of this is now you can enter and tour the inside of BioSpher 2. Which is what I did. The various biomes have been modified to some extent, and the majority of the wildlife is gone. The human habitat area has the feel of a spacecraft (as intended).

The different areas we visited included the temperate, desert and rain forest biomes. We also got to travel underneath and see the engineering involved in keeeping this place running. It is completely encased in steel and concrete underneath so could be completely sealed.

We even got to visit one of the lungs, which is a huge dome with a rubber membrane which moves up and down to maintain a constant pressure throughout the facility. It is no longer sealed, so they were able to demostrate how quickly it could rise and fall by opening a door. We went out through this door and it was quite a strong wind.