The fact that Steve Bannon inadvertently caused the creation of the movie "Bio-Dome" is a seriously underreported fact.
History of Biosphere 2
31–40 of 91 posts
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#32My company provided the first Internet connection for Biosphere 2 in the 1995 timeframe. This was right after the bust, they were taken over by Columbia University. At the time I took a tour of most of the complex and it had a very weird, abandoned feel to it. FWIW, most of the systems that monitored / controlled everything there (like Jurassic Park) were ran on HPUX.
Neat! Did those HPUX machines happen to run CDE? The perfect mood-desktop for cool Jurassic Park stuff IMO.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always get downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, but the Elon Musk hype squad is just not being realistic about how far we are from establishing a permanent colony on mars. Severe issues remain.
A Mars colony is something humanity should start thinking seriously about once we successfully run a production-grade lunar colony for about a decade-- long enough to recognize and tackle the worst bugs.
A sustainable colony on earth would be a good pilot
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just shows that we have to do a lot of tedious testing before there is a chance to go to Mars. Even pretty innocent looking things can cause huge problems that can’t be anticipated beforehand
I always get downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, but the Elon Musk hype squad is just not being realistic about how far we are from establishing a permanent colony on mars. Severe issues remain.
I don't see why this realization should be regarded as a counter argument to establishing a Mars colony. It's really really hard and a lot of problems need to be solved.
The most important thing for me is that most if not all of these problems are extremely relevant on earth and for dealing with climate change and overpopulation. Now one could say that we should then solve them for Earth first, but that's not how things work. We only have solar panels today because there wasn't any better way to power satellites. Earth makes things so easy that we won't go for >99% water reclamation, 0 waste green houses and so on.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Mars colony is something humanity should start thinking seriously about once we successfully run a production-grade lunar colony for about a decade-- long enough to recognize and tackle the worst bugs.
A sustainable colony on earth would be a good pilot
But without saying "this is a test for Mars" such a colony will never be built. Even in Antarctica shipping in supplies once a year is just sooo much easier.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#36I took a tour of Biosphere 2 when I was young. I remember the guide talking about two specific problems they didn't anticipate that dramatically altered the outcome of the experiment: The 'domes' are supported by a metal lattice framework. That structure actually blocked too much sun and created extra shade which affected the plant growth. The concrete used in the construction was sucking up carbon dioxide and changi…
This just shows that we have to do a lot of tedious testing before there is a chance to go to Mars. Even pretty innocent looking things can cause huge problems that can’t be anticipated beforehand
IMHO Biosphere 2 was not a realistic experiment for a self-sustained off-world colony. They tried to to mimic a complex self-regulating biosphere and failed. The pragmatic approach is going with a tightly controlled artificial ecosystem with the absolute minimum number of species and heavy technological involvement. The russian BIOS-3 is a much better model for a Mars colony.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always get downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, but the Elon Musk hype squad is just not being realistic about how far we are from establishing a permanent colony on mars. Severe issues remain.
I don't see why this realization should be regarded as a counter argument to establishing a Mars colony. It's really really hard and a lot of problems need to be solved. The most important thing for me is that most if not all of these problems are extremely relevant on earth and for dealing with climate change and overpopulation. Now one could say that we should then solve them for Earth first, but that's not how thi…
> I don't see why this realization should be regarded as a counter argument to establishing a Mars colony. It's really really hard and a lot of problems need to be solved.
The point is that, right now in 2019, we do not know how to build a self-sustaining colony outside of Earth's biosphere. If you want such a thing to exist, you have to do a lot of research first to enable it. But, in general, the space enthusiast crowd isn't interested in pushing for that kind of research. And without that research, a lot of the arguments for space travel are very moot.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#38Nothing about this is a 'scientific experiment'. It was a badly conceived stunt.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#39My company provided the first Internet connection for Biosphere 2 in the 1995 timeframe. This was right after the bust, they were taken over by Columbia University. At the time I took a tour of most of the complex and it had a very weird, abandoned feel to it. FWIW, most of the systems that monitored / controlled everything there (like Jurassic Park) were ran on HPUX.
Neat! Did those HPUX machines happen to run CDE? The perfect mood-desktop for cool Jurassic Park stuff IMO.
They were pre-CDE.. Motif based.
Re: History of Biosphere 2
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see why this realization should be regarded as a counter argument to establishing a Mars colony. It's really really hard and a lot of problems need to be solved. The most important thing for me is that most if not all of these problems are extremely relevant on earth and for dealing with climate change and overpopulation. Now one could say that we should then solve them for Earth first, but that's not how thi…
> I don't see why this realization should be regarded as a counter argument to establishing a Mars colony. It's really really hard and a lot of problems need to be solved. The point is that, right now in 2019, we do not know how to build a self-sustaining colony outside of Earth's biosphere. If you want such a thing to exist, you have to do a lot of research first to enable it. But, in general, the space enthusiast c…
I'm such a space enthusiast and I'd absolutely love a Biodome 3. That said, I think that people tend to confuse "sustainable colony" and "self-sustaining colony". If it ever comes to it, we will have a sustained presence on Mars for decades before it becomes self-sustaining. That said even with supplies from Earth a Mars base will need a lot of sustainability tech that can be applied on earth too.