Biosphere 2: An American Space Odyssey | Retro Report

Biosphere 2: An American Space Odyssey | Retro Report | The New York Times

Рет қаралды 227,635

11 жыл бұрын

With dreams of colonizing space, eight people sealed themselves in a glass biosphere in 1991. But they eventually "suffocated, starved and went mad."
Read the story here: nyti.ms/114EsnF
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Biosphere 2: An American Space Odyssey | Retro Report | The New York Times
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Пікірлер: 167

@akinmytua4680 8 жыл бұрын

I'm glad that they found a use for it.

@lmo7724 6 жыл бұрын

Autymn Maas n

@cuhweenuh 2 жыл бұрын

Wish this video didn’t paint the Biosphere in such a negative light. It was a brilliant idea, an amazing feat of science, and we learned absolutely invaluable information about our own world that we couldn’t have gained otherwise.

@Orthagoni 8 жыл бұрын

just because it failed doesnt mean it was a bad idea. Showing that something doesnt work or is more difficulat than thought is actually scientifically almost as valuable as showing that something does work.

@i_am_49er_miner79 7 жыл бұрын

it kind of does

@Orthagoni 7 жыл бұрын

No, my point is, its still progress, because it shows that it doesnt work THIS WAY, which you didnt know before you did it, so it wasnt a bad idea, it just doesnt work this way, which is still more knowledge than before

@i_am_49er_miner79 7 жыл бұрын

true, but arent they making a new one? bio 3?

@EyeLean5280 6 жыл бұрын

Yes, but let's be real. They should have sent competent scientists in for one thing. For another, they should have been honest about the equipment they were using. Finally, they haven't been forthcoming with sufficient data about what happened during those two years. Doing it the way they did made it all useless. It was a good idea, but there's a right way to run such an experiment and they blew it.

@drAnouar 6 жыл бұрын

I think it could work very good plus: now we have hydroponia, Co2 Scrubbers (that just need electricity), high efficient solar panels, etc.

@enraptured6700 6 жыл бұрын

As a child, I remember Biosphere 2 being included in my textbook as one of the goalposts to be reached before space exploration. How fascinating to hear how it actually turned out.

@almac2598 3 жыл бұрын

I'm a Brit. As part of my degree I studied Oceanography and Ecosystems, so when in Arizona in 96 I visited there. The tour was good. The guide explained what the idea was, what went wrong, what went right, and the lessons learned. She answered any questions as well as she could, and went and found someone who could when she couldn't. It was a large experiment, which discovered things not thought of (eg, the imported soil oxidising, using the oxygen faster than it could be produced causing the CO2 build up) proved some others and of course disproved others. Research was ongoing and still is I believe. The lessons learned will have been taken note of by NASA and other Space agencies in planning future trips to the Moon and Mars. However, the video is typical media, who live by the rule - 'Never let the truth get in the way of sensationalising a story'

@1981Taliesin 10 жыл бұрын

The concept is excellent. You simply make adjustments until you get it right.

@tafoxxvideos 4 жыл бұрын

Based strictly on the contents of this video, I feel it deserves a more objective edit when it comes to Mark Cooper's claim that the driving philosophy was cultish. The brief mention cherry picks the terms "doom" and "cosmic immortality", and in doing so misconstrues the common and uncontroversial viewpoint laid out in the very source text shown onscreen--that the Earth is a single point of failure for the species--so severely as to broadly characterize these people as insane.

@a1stbornunicorn 4 жыл бұрын

I just visited in Oct 2019 and the studies they are conducting are both important and fascinating. “The lung” in and of itself was extraordinary. I did not know the back story about the original inhabitants so this report was enlightening. That part of Biosphere 2’s history is pretty glorified in the exhibits there; described as more of a NASA type experiment.

@RealJackHQ 4 жыл бұрын

Moral of the story: One scientist’s trash is another scientist’s treasure.

@Felix-Mueller 10 жыл бұрын

If it has Highspeed-Internet... I want to live there.

@thatguyineverycommentssection Жыл бұрын

underrated experiment!

@beldengi 5 жыл бұрын

The Eden Project in Cornwall is another fantastic bio project inside some huge bubbles. I spent a wonderful day there.

@gillianrosheuvel6750 5 жыл бұрын

Is it me, or is the narrator of this hella skeptical? Also, when Cooper says "They weren't God's chosen people; they were their own chosen people," I cackled.

@Lovlyb35 4 жыл бұрын

That was funny

@MrBucketlist 3 жыл бұрын

I could watch these reports all day. There so interesting

@Dracoy 2 жыл бұрын

Why does it matter if they had a CO2 scrubber? Does it only work on Earth? I feel like we were forming a colony we would have a device like that...

@firstnamesecondname5341 4 жыл бұрын

And the biggest issues it found was people simply cannot get along. Bio2 found answers to so many questions that weren’t even comprehended at its time, it opened wide the need to understand to supplementary and consequential not just the core project The hyperactivity of a biosphererians (subsequently also demonstrated in other projects they’ve been involved with) also caused huge issues and injury

@septillion2501 8 жыл бұрын

At least it gave the world BioDome, which coincidentally is the only reason I even know about any of this. ;)

@jermed2001 5 жыл бұрын

Same, sadly...

@userequaltoNull 6 жыл бұрын

An acre is needed for a four-person family.

@jameskenny8821 11 жыл бұрын

I really dont see what was wrong with John Allan's theory. It can't hurt to have that as your backbone of a theory.

@clairmac 3 жыл бұрын

I think this is something we should revisit soon. If we could have working biosphere's not only could we apply it to make cities of the future, where we could potentially marry together nature and technology to reduce the impact we're currently having on the planet but also we could look at having proper space stations on the Moon or Mars. It's not a super flawed idea, the technology and the science just wasn't there in the early 90s but we do may have the potential to make it work now.

@Krezmick 11 жыл бұрын

What an under rated series.

@Yoni123 11 жыл бұрын

i realized b1 is the earth itself actually...

@Tfreezy259 6 жыл бұрын

I have become a big fan of the Retro Report!

@Thaddeussupreme 6 жыл бұрын

Viva Los biosphere!!! Ed Bass is Sid Bass brother, for many years this family ran The Walt Disney Company as their largest shareholders. They were responsible for saving the company from being sold off into pieces when they recruited Michael Eisner and Frank Wells.

@jjthomas2297 10 жыл бұрын

The problems were many. The concrete used in construction was not allowed to cure properly, for example; that meant it absorbed oxygen, creating a hypoxic situation for the "crew". In addition, the structure was not large enough to achieve the effect of cleansing its' own atmosphere or did it have enough room to feed its' occupants. The "crew" were vastly undereducated as well, with most getting their "degrees" from a mail order company that was totally fraudulent, they were no more than High School graduates, with one exception; they were "New Agers", modern hippies out to prove a social point, rather than to gather serious scientific data; even if they tried, they simply were not educated enough to do anything more than read gauges and write down the data. Finally, there was no psychological as in NASA crews. They were just people in the group that the builder knew and were willing to do it.. Throw in a couple of attractive women along with the package(to assure jealousy among the men) and this was doomed from day 1. Some of the crew HAVE gone on to do real science, though. Jayne Poynter, the attractive brunette that cut off part of her fingers, is a pioneer in life support technology, for example

@chrissnyder8108 7 жыл бұрын

Almost right, it was the excessive compost added in the soils that was absorbing too much oxygen as it biodegraded, thus releasing CO2, and even the CO2 disappeared because that was being absorbed by the fresh concrete. In the second round of sealed trial, the concrete was sealed, most of the excessive amounts of compost had already biodegraded, and the atmosphere was more stable. I don't know if they continued to use CO@ scrubbers in the second trial, but they did grow all of their food successfully, so it was a vast improvement.

@darthvader5300 5 жыл бұрын

The Biopshere I and II scientific experiment is a success even though it is falsely called a failure but we did learned a lot from it's mistakes and errors, overlooked problems and potential problems, and unexpected things and other unknowns that keeps on cropping up over it's 2 year time period and should had never been discontinued FOR WE HAVE THE NEED TO KEEP ON LEARNING FROM THE UNKNOWNS AND UNEXPECTED THAT WILL KEEP ON CROPPING UP AND THEN FINDING OUT ON HOW THEY OCCURRED AND HOW TO FIX THEM, MITIGATE THEM, COMPENSATE FOR THEM, AND PERMANENTLY SOLVE THEM EVENTUALLY. The scientific experimental Biosphere I and II is not a failure but a resounding success for no matter how much engineering and scientific thought was given in designing it and building it it gave us a lot of lessons to LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES AND FROM OUR ERRORS, for Biosphere I and II is a testing scientific R&D experiment to test everything what was done into it and to give it more than enough time, 2 years in fact, to find out what are the errors and mistakes that we made, what are the problems that we overlooked and WHAT ARE THE FUTURE UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS THAT WILL CROP UP DURING THAT 2 YEAR EXPERIMENT THAT NEEDS TO BE STUDIED AND REMEDIED AND RECTIFIED AND CORRECTED. The greatest mistake of the Biosphere I and II project is that they WRONGLY DISCONTINUED THE EXPERIMENT BECAUSE ONLY BY CONTINUING THE EXPERIMENT WE CAN LEARN MUCH MORE FROM OUR MISTAKES, ERRORS, THE OVERLOOKED PROBLEMS AND OVERLOOKED POTENTIAL PROBLEMS, DESIGN FLAWS, AND MOST IMPORTANT THE FUTURE UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS THAT WILL CROPPED UP AND WILL KEEP ON CROPPING UP OVER THE NEXT MANY YEARS BEYOND THE 2 YEAR TIME PERIOD OF THE EXPERIMENT. It is those future and unexpected problems that will crop up over the next many years beyond the 2 year time period of the Biosphere I and II experiment that we need to wait for patiently and persistently FOR IT IS THE UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS AND FLAWS are what really matter the most! IT IS THE UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS AND FLAWS are what really matter the most! From them we can keep on continuing the process of patiently and persistently and perseveringly wait for them to come up "UNEXPECTEDLY FOR THERE ARE STILL MANY UNKNOWNS THAT WE STILL NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR PLANET'S BIOSPHERE ITSELF! As the unknowns and unexpected things keeps on cropping up out of nowhere beyond the 2 year time period we will also be simultaneously busy fixing them up, rectifying the problems, correcting the problems, compensating for any design flaws and errors, repairing any overlooked engineering problems, and so forth and so on for the list is almost virtually endless and keep on continuing the experiment "PATIENTLY" until 50 years to 100 years has passed without any problems AND AT THE SAME TIME KEEPING WRITTEN RECORDS OF EVERYTHING THAT IS OCCURRING INSIDE THE BIOSPHERE 1 AND BIOSPHERE II. It is only in this way that we can hope to learn all of the UNKNOWNS AND UNEXPECTED THINGS THAT NEEDS TO BE IRONED OUT. Once all the kinks are ironed out, then a second one will be built based on the 1st Biosphere I and Biosphere II to see if we can replicate the entire process correctly down to the last living and beneficial microorganism.

@joseivanmedina6133 10 жыл бұрын

This is a very nice place to visit.

@TsukiNaito1 4 жыл бұрын

Looks like something out of scifi? More like looks like something out of EPCOT. Though, if it were at EPCOT, it would work.

@lpm67 7 ай бұрын

Even failure yields useful information and a chance to learn something

@g.v.3493 4 жыл бұрын

Marc Cooper is proof of the importance of wearing a helmet while riding motorcycles.

@cliveramsbotty6077 8 жыл бұрын

you should replace the sound of jane poynter talking with a sackfull of strangled cats being scraped across a blackboard, that would be less abrasive

@great567 2 жыл бұрын

The earth is officially doomed and we do need to be extraterrestrial in order survive. Also, there was an issue with the oxygen pathway and it drove them kinda mad. They eventually figured it out and we’re back to “normal”

@chownful 7 жыл бұрын

bruh i thought this was just a movie

@bbt305 4 жыл бұрын

Why did you leave out so much? Importantly, and relevantly, the new CEO after John was Steve Bannon. And it was a success when he took over. He has the midas touch, love him or hate him. He deserves credit where its due!

@richardbalboa7161 4 жыл бұрын

Looks like a Hunger Games arena

@jeremybultron 7 жыл бұрын

Imagine this in Elon musk hands, just saying

@meerkat1954 5 жыл бұрын

It would fail even worse. Just look at what's happening with Tesla now. Elon is a crackpot nutcase with an ego bigger than the cult leader in this video.

@NasirMxd 5 жыл бұрын

@@meerkat1954 say that again

@kkelseym 5 жыл бұрын

God it'd be so crazy and go so wrong I'm imagining all the ways Twitter would rip it apart lol. It'd make a great movie.

@nathanschimke7309 5 жыл бұрын

meerkat1954 lmao aged poorly

@V0YAG3R 5 жыл бұрын

jeremy bultron Cult to cult 👌🏻

@kalviskalnins3314 9 жыл бұрын

why did no one made this project work after the first failure? the main problem was the concrete absorbing oxygen and some microbes who did other stuff then thay shod.. and they did not monitor everything properly.. why noone continued?

@2epYiping 9 жыл бұрын

maybe it's just too expensive!

@jimbogimpo3543 9 жыл бұрын

Because they also didn't do it legitly, before the project fully launched they added artificial air supplies, which still couldn't provide enough

@BANHMIZON 9 жыл бұрын

Kalvis Kalniņš because, in secret, the participants went insane and starting killing, raping, and cannibalizing each other.

@ihyperionsfearless5465 9 жыл бұрын

Because the searcher are from the play

@ihyperionsfearless5465 9 жыл бұрын

It like the hire actor

@PhilVerryChannel 6 жыл бұрын

Very, very cool.

@EyeLean5280 6 жыл бұрын

It's so cool that it's being used for real science now.

@maebeexo5655 9 жыл бұрын

I'm here because of Rhett and Link:D

@paul_chandler3082 9 жыл бұрын

Me too

@brod_drumz 9 жыл бұрын

Same here

@bencloostermans2181 4 жыл бұрын

The ingenuity, inventivity, balls of Americans are a wonder, if only it could be joined to the rationality of Europe and not be subject to the media propaganda machine.... I love the ideas behind it, but the moment it becomes sensational, something that seems a requirement in America, things tend to get skewed.

@bencloostermans2181 4 жыл бұрын

As it has disappeared from the media, biosphere still has tons of research value, as indicated, it just failed as a smaller recreation of the world.... For those interested, Veritassium did a video on it this year. And while I have yet to do this myself, I am sure a ton of papers are written about it, or did research in it....

@TheDude111 8 жыл бұрын

Inspired the greatest movie of all time.

@captainclipy6236 6 жыл бұрын

The Dude HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA, nope.

@EyeLean5280 6 жыл бұрын

What movie are you thinking of - Zardoz?

@ArtisticlyAlexis 6 жыл бұрын

I'm a platypus!

@beenaatlee8020 3 жыл бұрын

A Shell in Ocean 🌊. Airbait 1,2,3. ✈. The Lost Circle....

@erniestuartstuart6452 10 ай бұрын

I clicked this on oh my god Pauly sure made his second biodome

@HotShame0 9 жыл бұрын

"Futuristic"

@Lkenmaner 11 жыл бұрын

The current pace is good. Scientists are in control of biosphere 2 and are slowly reaching its intended purpose

@christosgiannopoulos828 2 жыл бұрын

I think I know where the next BioShock game will take place

@shmok3y 10 жыл бұрын

im doing a project about this its so cool to think about

@mattk1544 9 жыл бұрын

Those weren't researchers, they were actors. If they were real researchers they would have probably been in there longer.

@DepressiveMindsband 5 жыл бұрын

Let's try again!! ^^

@atomiswave2 5 жыл бұрын

So it all worked out

@whalesnamedshark 5 жыл бұрын

They just need more greens

@brainlafotest 10 жыл бұрын

whoa biodome. lol

@deireiyiledaime9363 3 жыл бұрын

Who is here after yes theory?

@GregHoward79 8 жыл бұрын

a huge costly failure, but hopefully they have learned something. If this was a great thing, why no Biosphere 3? if it was so important? sound like they haven't solved some of the mysteries involved.

@jaseadams4316 8 жыл бұрын

+Greg Howard I am in for Biosphere 3! Sounds awesome

@bonefishboards 3 жыл бұрын

Poynter should never have gone back in.

@antimatter13 11 жыл бұрын

Earthship.

@aAaAAA-ppgg 6 ай бұрын

Reminds me of the Dharma people from Lost haha

@ColonelCactus 9 жыл бұрын

Good Mythical Morning Anyone?

@brod_drumz 9 жыл бұрын

Yes

@emillesamu Ай бұрын

hezbollah ? disraelis jew ? cano canuck.

@RG_GUAHAO Жыл бұрын

so its truly possible to be like truman without even knowing

@iconoclastvituperations9587 2 жыл бұрын

do you have any idea how much it would cost to build that crap on another planet?!?

@Yoni123 11 жыл бұрын

oh bs1 is the earth....

@emillesamu Ай бұрын

@andrewhay2241 2 жыл бұрын

A lesson in what happens when journalism, science and post-religion morality mix.

@Yoni123 11 жыл бұрын

but what happened to biosphere 1?

@erika_7777 4 жыл бұрын

Biosphere 1 is Earth

@rogerszmodis 3 жыл бұрын

The whole bio-enclosure concept is fundamentally flawed. Be it expressed via dome, sphere, cube, or even the stately tetrahedron.

@KarIgnishaYumi 6 жыл бұрын

So it like doing the space station but on earth...But they should have had group A and group B. Scientists in one group and average people in the other. Also i think the project should be redone. it seem interesting but guess this can just be done on space station or vs people who live out in villages who grow there own farm etc. Ill have to see if there a longer documentary about this.

@ManInTheBigHat 7 ай бұрын

The real odyssey is those hair styles.

@steventhefan 9 жыл бұрын

Rhett and Link

@opaaloys 11 жыл бұрын

They want to test if it`s possible to build a secound Habitat outside of the earth. The resuld is, it is verry difficult to build it for 8 people. And we see what happend if climate Change become evident to the biosphere and to little Societies too.

@vincentmichaelleoni4652 7 жыл бұрын

this is like The Real World on steroids

@emillesamu Ай бұрын

@KennethStewart 9 жыл бұрын

8:40 - "Since 1996, Biosphere 2 has produced over 150 scientific papers." Just 150 papers!? That's very, very few. Far less than I would think.

@dantheman1998 9 жыл бұрын

Kenneth Stewart I wouldnt be surprised if the experiments in the Biosphere took a very long time to complete

@pianosidechat 8 жыл бұрын

+Kenneth Stewart for 20 years that's quite a bit of scientific contribution. More than almost any single researcher in their life time.

@matthewcarroll3703 6 жыл бұрын

Published papers

@davidhollenshead4892 5 жыл бұрын

The problem was the scale, as you can make a sealed aquarium that receives only light, and supports a fish or two. The issues with the concrete, compost, etc, would have been obvious if they tried it first with a small enclosure with a few small animals...

@jesuo1982 3 жыл бұрын

seen in times of covid 😷

@habernette7854 8 жыл бұрын

Vay anasını gardaş.

@emillesamu Ай бұрын

hamas ? 9:44

@jjthompson2205 10 жыл бұрын

I need a new keyboard..pardon the typos

@NIA-eg9zf Жыл бұрын

Africans turned this into a whole new idea and called it “Big Brother Africa”

@annchen8919 11 жыл бұрын

This "documentary" gives all the gossips and none of the facts. NYT should have interviewed Allen before dismissing many scientists' years of hard work.

@seand67 7 жыл бұрын

WOWWWWWW

@dracovenit9549 11 жыл бұрын

It is far better for a group of people to be their own chosen people than think they have been chosen by god... like some people we all know.

@Dezagon 11 жыл бұрын

if they could grow hemp that would solve there protein shortages. also, of course they had issues with co2, the ocean section of the biosphere is way too small. the earth gets most of its oxygen from algae in the ocean which covers a large majority of the earth. the ocean section should be the largest in a biosphere. all this being said, its still an incredible project even with its issues. I can't wait to visit it again and i hope to see other similar projects in the near future

@sprungmonkey6inches 6 жыл бұрын

the granola chick at 3:30 is wearing tie dye. can't believe this

@Force-hiddenmasquerade 6 жыл бұрын

Bio-Dome was a bigger shitstorm than Bio-Sphere 2

@mksabourinable 5 жыл бұрын

I think a lot of the space was under utilized. I saw another video about this that said that there was a desert ecosystem area. While useful for what it became, it's quite useless for its original purpose. Not to mention you have tall buildings filled with mostly empty space. Why not have more plants in there? Get more oxygen! Not to mention select your plants wisely. Not all plants are equal in terms of oxygen production. Also their means of farming.... Should've done aquaponics. At least hydroponics..... Like this seemed to more be focused on recreating earth on a small scale than actually sustaining life. Granted some of the farming advances weren't well known or hadn't come to be yet, such as vertical farming, but still. I think with modern knowledge and a more direct goal, it would be achievable.

@Orthagoni 8 жыл бұрын

except for this one, i have liked all retro reports so far. This one is extremely biased. Them having lived in a commune, is not necessarily a bad thing, that doesnt mean it was a cult, it just means they were a group of like minded people living together. Please whats the difference to friends sharing an apartment, to artists living in a house together, whats the difference to what society is. And the philosophy of believing that this earth might be doomed and the human race will have to live on (forever, hence immortality of the species) in space, is not that far fetched after all, looking at global warming, the garbage floating in the oceans, and huge amounts of radioactive waste. Well, and noone said that THEY should be the ones to continue the human race, they just did an experiment if IT WAS POSSIBLE. thats completely different after all, and not that arrogant and egocentric really.

@EyeLean5280 6 жыл бұрын

I agree that their having lived on a commune could be irrelevant. However, their having almost no scientific training is extremely relevant. They were chosen for the experiment for the worst reason - they were buddies with the guy who conceived of it. Very bad "science", if you can call it science at all.

@XusernamegoeshereX 6 жыл бұрын

Ok but seriously, the one dude's response to the cult thing was basically him saying 'other people could be considered cults by those standards'. He didn't actually say they weren't one. Don't be so naive. lol

@EyeLean5280 6 жыл бұрын

Yes, it does seem like a bit of deflection - but on the other hand, there's no real way for us to know.

@emillesamu Ай бұрын

y ?

@ThePete1081 11 жыл бұрын

You would go mad too if you were locked up with Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin

@jjthompson2205 10 жыл бұрын

Yea, because she went back, got a real degree

@avi4francis 5 жыл бұрын

Conjugal visits allowed?

@ExpiredMike 3 жыл бұрын

Well they did have 8males and 8females, soooo

@Lovlyb35 4 жыл бұрын

We all know this was gonna fail in the beginning and if they try it again, it will fail.

@stronghumblefriend 4 жыл бұрын

Still til this day I have to ask where are the black people at?!

@rotoscopic8757 5 жыл бұрын

A Flop at the Box Office of Life

@KenAdams426 6 жыл бұрын

VIVA LOS BIODOME!!!!

@ShibHater 4 жыл бұрын

Why they have not open KFC and Domino's inside Bio 2?

@akapdcdaka 9 жыл бұрын

Wtf so biosphere 2 was just some crazy idea from a cult leader nice.

@chadarracks 2 жыл бұрын

It failed cause bud and doyle didn't show up.

@jonslg240 5 жыл бұрын

"The only thing that was in the bag was like some drawings" *lol you're like lying you like know that right? Because we all do.* Whatever you had in there was something to help you guys. Equipment I'm guessing, most likely medical supplies; including not only what she'll need for that finger, but what they'll need should any more accidents like that arise. #liarliarpantsonfire

@gregorbraugman758 5 жыл бұрын

Do you think that you could live in and maintain a biosphere for 2 years, only coming out once and then bringing a single duffel bag of supplies back in? Could you go 7 days without eating anything that you bought from a grocery store? Those eight people went 2 years with only a single bag of supplies. I'd say that's pretty impressive.