Biosphere 2: The Martian Colony We Made on Earth... And How it Went Wrong

Simon's Social Media:

This video is #sponsored by Surfshark.

Simon's Other Channels:

[kevinstrout]

Oh man, I live close by so I've been several times, and its even more impressive than it may sound at first glance. First of all, I want to point out that a 10% air loss per year is far, far more tightly sealed than even the international space station and is a leak rate a martian base would probably have to strive for.

Also he never mentioned the Lungs! Those two huge domes you see to the side of the main building are not actually for habitats, instead they contain enormous rubber membranes that can rise and fall to regulate the pressure within the biosphere (You get to go inside them as part of the tour, it's pretty awesome). The pressure differentials were a problem less because of the effect they had on the humans, the much greater concern was that on the scale of this building even a relatively minor pressure drop would blow out the glass.

And for takeaways, The drop in oxygen is actually very interesting, because while it was caused by microbes in the soil, it shouldn't have been a problem because the carbon dioxide should have regulated them. What they actually found (and honestly one of the more potentially important takeaways) was that the concrete in the substructure was absorbing huge quantities of CO2, a process that was never considered.

And one last cool story, when the U of A purchased the site and started renovations, they actually found some surviving species of the original fish in the ocean, which had not been maintained for almost 20 years.

It isn't a closed system anymore, but I still highly recommend it to anyone who visits Arizona!

[andriesoliviier]

"Day 5 without caffeine... the murders will start at noon."

[hosermandeusl]

I love his closing statement. We always applaud the winners who learned from others failures. The importance of failure when learning something new is learning what DOESN'T work. It is better to try & fail than not to try at all.

[phoenixsixxrising]

"you are super important!" I believe the coffee has been sipped again!

[haydonekstrom]

Hey! I used to work there. The extra 20 minutes was because they didn’t anticipate the nearly 3, 000 people out there to watch them come out, and because their skin was tinted, they had someone come in and do their make-up before they came out.

[williamozier]

I worked for the Arcosanti project between 2000-2005. During that time I went to BS2 a few times, and got the professional courtesy behind the curtain tours. Years later I wrote a news article about the travesty that was the concept of Biosphere Estates, where they were going to demolish the project and build a standard housing subdivision, fortunately that never happened. I alwys thought the only "failure" of the project was that they tried to hide data they found unfavorable.

[birdofprey_bird]

"Mars 500" is the name of the project, where a couple of people were locked in a simulated spaceship. But it was mostly to see how humans would react to long flights and not so much about a biosphere on a different planet.

[eastcoastartist]

I have watched a few studies where they followed people who tried to live in a community. Every time, the people stayed hungry and were absolutely plagued with aggressive fighting. (See Frontier House and Colonial House)

[icecubes_for_the_boiling_frogs]

I worked on biosphere 2!! Not the original construction, but a repair project 8 years ago.

[MTTT]

Another problem that they aparently faced that trees were unable to grow beyond a certain height, before they simply fell over. It was later revealed that the trees were lacking wind, which aparently was needed for plants, because they needed to be put under certain stress levels (physical one, not mentally) to grow strong enough to carry their own weight. I read online that this is aparently an inssue that indoor weed-growers have known for decades, yet the scientists in Biosphere 2 did not.

[zmanjace]

This sounds like a really neat project though. And I wouldnt call the first run a failure. They should have known there would be a ton of problems on the first run and used that information to improve and iterate. They went into the first study expecting to test one thing but found out they should probably focus on other factors first. Could have been really informative.

[Brakiri]

I agree with the assessment that this was NOT a failure, not at all. They learned a great deal. From a technical, environmental AND from a psychological standpoint! What has been learned in these 2 missions will be very helpful for the construction and composition of personell (psych eval and things you need to take with you to keep your sanity) of moon or mars bases!

[jefflloyd]

Even the Ants dug themselves out through solid concrete....

[warrenmiller]

I think the project you were thinking of was BIOS-3 in the soviet union. They used algae to recycle air and most of the water, but used stored food instead of growing their own. The longest mission in it lasted 180 days.

[craighinkle]

BioDome 3, The Return of Pauly Shore.

[jmcasler]

I remember reading about this as a child in elementary school then got to visit it in 1997. It’s impressive and at the time, it was already rusting away.

[rs]

Can you do a video on ITER or the large hadron collider? That would be cool to learn about and their future plans also

[gavynmessenger]

I love how he’s asking wether or not somebody could live in a dome for years like I haven’t been doing that already

[bassett_green]

Your After Effects export bugs are hilarious, but this doesn't compare to "THE COFFEE HAS BEEN SIPPED"

[charris]

1 cup of coffee per week. "Its beginning to sound like a nightmare" Imagine Simon going savage within the 1st week he's fashioned a speer and hunting chickens like a wild Iceni tribesmen.