Life in Space - leaving Eden in search for Paradise
Feb 1, 2005 19: 21 EST
Previously published Jan 19, 2005
Biosphere 2 (Earth being no 1) is a giant glass dome in the Arizona desert, built by scientists to simulate Earth. The idea is to put such structures on Mars one day, where humans can live until we have created a proper atmosphere on the planet.
The self-contained ecological experiment is pretty cool. There's an ocean complete with coral reefs and a white sandy beach lapped by gentle waves, a desert, a rainforest and a savannah. There is wind and there is rain - all created by man.
Ants and dead plants in man made world
But there are problems too. It's really tough to keep the system balanced. Remove one factor and 10 side effects occur. Add a remedy and 5 unwanted things shoot up. Ants are everywhere. A damp smell lingers in the air and there are dead plants scattered around. Although it's cool to walk around this miniature world for a few hours, it feels pretty nice to leave it.
As you walk outside, you take a deep breath - and look around at the real thing with a new vision. All of a sudden you notice the perfectly green trees, the flawless dirt, the clear blue sky. And you think to yourself...that God guy - he is really good at this.
-180 degrees Celsius below an orange sky
You'd probably get the same feeling if you went to Titan. The preliminary results of the data sent back by the probe shows we landed on a surface of wet sand or clay with a thin solid crust. The dark soil is a mix of dirty water ice and hydrocarbon ice. The temperature measured by the probe at ground level was about -180 degrees Celsius.
Frigid tar-like ocean
After you'd dipped your toes in the frigid tar like ocean, and glanced around the dimly lit world below an arctic, orange sky - you'd probably be very happy to get back onto your space ship and head home for the Bahamas. And once here, you'd wonder - why on Earth you'd ever want to leave again.
The scientists will deliver a better view of Titan's strange distant world during a press conference on Friday 21 January.
Biosphere 2 is for sale. "We'd love to see the Biosphere 2 used as a research activity, but we know that may not be the end result," said the owner, Christopher Bannon, general manager of Decisions Investment Corp. of Fort Worth, Tex. Texas billionaire Ed Bass, president of Decisions Investment, spent more than $200 million to build Biosphere 2 in the 1980s as a prototype for a space colony.
In 1991, eight "biospherians" were sealed inside for a two-year stay. But the project was aborted prematurely due to various difficulties with the ecological system and tension between the "biospherians".
Image of Biosphere 2, courtesy of www2.bc.cc.ca.us
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