:m:+ :cool: =:confused:

1. What is going on with the "biosphere" projects and the like? Is it just me, or are advancements really slow going? From what I've read, the greatest challenge is to ensure that human values are compatible with the ecological potential of the biosphere facility. It seems to me that every high profile experiment I've heard of has fallen apart long before the human values became an issue. What is the problem?

2. Why don't we just bio-engineer a stable system instead of trying to replicate portions of earth's little balance-in-chaos type system? If we start from scratch, we set the controls and the variables. Wouldn't that be a better recipe for success?

Certainly would, in my view. It's much easier to set up a system over which you have total control rather than having to deal with a system which could go crazy at any moment because of some factor that you hadn't thought about. Imagine if we let Nature take complete control of the internal environment of a major skyscraper, for instance. We Humans have got used to living within almost totally artificial environments, so we may as well continue the trend if that's what keeps us comfortable. ;)

The "Biosphere Project" is an online research reference center mostly for teachers:
http://www.environmentaleducationohio.org/Biosphere/biosphere.htm

However, if you are referring to "Biosphere 2," the enclosed human-bioecosystem experiment in Arizona, it didn't work, and is now nothing more than a museum.
http://www.bio2.com/

Basically this proves - and no scientist will deny this - that we do not yet know enough about the control variables - let alone know how to regulate them! - to create an artificial ecosystem that we can control to sustain a self-sufficient enclosed habitation and existence. We cannot yet predict all the variables (weather, climate, solar radiation, inter-species cooperation, influence between micro- and macro-organisms, fundamental ecological necessities necessary for longterm survival).

Yeah, I'm familiar with the old and failed "biosphere" projects. There was the one in Arizona and another in Russia. Both did poorly. And I have seen those links already. Old news.

My questions are about where are we going from here? Has sustained ecosystems dropped off the map? Who is making new advancements? What are the big problems and how are they being solved? Or has that part of the science community just given up and fallen asleep?

The only new projects I can seem to find are some dudes (and chicks) up in Alaska who lock themselves in a constructed bunker with some plants, lights and a journal for a week and pretend they have landed on another planet or something. Its cute, but not exactly promising. I do wish more of the right people had their enthusiasm.

Seems to me the experiment was a success, it proved that human control is still useless at this point for achieving sustainability and a hands-off policy of non-interference with respect to the environment is the best course of action.

Bipshere 2 in Arizona was a complete failure. First, the inhabitants had to rely on frozen food that was provided, then C02 levels rose to critical levels, oxygen had to be pumped in, then they had problems with how to dispose of the waste material (human excrements, etc,.), included animal species died off:

"The first inhabitants (Biosphereans as they called themselves) entered the Biosphere 2 structure in September of 1991 as pioneers and emerged two years later hungry and depressed. Life inside the Biosphere wasn't as easy or as rosey as originally thought. A little over a year into their stay, the oxygen levels inside the structure dropped dramatically to about 14% rather than the nominal 21% found on Earth. There was not enough oxygen to sustain life. Oxygen from the outside had to be pumped in. Unfortunately this meant that the system was no longer closed; it had become an open system. What had originally excited me had overnight disappointed me.

That oxygen had to be pumped in, thus destroying the original concept of building and living in a closed system is enough for many to call Biosphere 2 a failure. That 19 of 25 introduced vertebrate species became extinct, that the ocean became too acidic, that air pollution was a problem as was temperature control."
http://www.oswego.edu/~schneidr/CHE300/envinv/EnvInv01.html

Mother nature still is far beyond our controal, wich proves that if we can't controal a closed enviroment and survive, how can we have any influence on a global wide closed system?

working ecosystems... are over rated....

all we need to be able to do... is farm.

we dont need all the bugs.. just worms.....

we dont need animal species balances.....

just animals in cages and controlled envioments.. and under controlled breeding so that we can qurantee progress.

all of which serves one purpose.

to give us the skills to built giant collony space ships... for interstellar travel.


and we will have no need of eco systems.... just tight controlls.. on everything.

and we should abandon the whole idea of balancing variables...

and focus on pest control.

-MT

Um. Thanks for the insight, but what are you talking about?? Pest control? Do you mind if I ask what we or the caged animals would be breathing? We waste resources now because we can't recycle our "wastes" properly to create a sustaining cycle. The gasses we breathe run out. And where do you suggest we farm from? I'm wondering if I should even bother asking you. I have no idea who you are, or what your experience is, but you seem to know next to nothing about this concept.

Even in inhospitable places on this planet, it would be useful to have the ability to drop down a contained habitat. Create balance within imbalance. Build a cache of resources in an otherwise useless place. If we don't have an environment, in those situations we would need to know how to create and maintain one. Yes, that includes space, mars, the moon, and possibly under the ocean.

I am interested in sustained ecosystems because of a wide variety of applications. To just say, "farm better" and "focus on pest control" seems a bit short sighted to me.

(I mean, did he actually say pest control??)

What actually happened in Biosphere 2 was that the concrete the place was largely built from sucked CO2 from the air as it aged. It simply was not yet entirely inert and it resulted in the atmosphere being dominated by Nitrogen more and more.

Now if your didn't have this cement problem and you built the facility, lets say, four times larger... I don't see you actually having a problem.
It would probably work.

Sorry am I missing something here? Didn't we have a perfectly functioning 'biosphere' before humans unleashed the devil industrialisation. Remember the blue planet? Perhaps we'd be better coming up with some solutions to our rampant greed before we totally ruin the perfectly operational sphere we're currently living in..

totally artificial environments are NOT comfortable indeed they are pretty bad for our health in the long term. Think about it - artificial light, central heating, recycled drinking water, air conditioning.