Just north of Tucson, Arizona near the town of Oracle is a very strange looking cluster of buildings. Biosphere 2 was originally built to be an artificial closed ecological system. On one of our many trips to Tucson, we decided to take a tour of the biosphere and found it fascinating. It was the largest closed system ever created. It was used to explore the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization. The air tight structure allowed scientists to monitor the chemistry of the air, water and soil contained inside. The health of the human crew was continuously monitored by a medical team. Inside the biosphere there was an ocean with coral reef, wetlands, savannah grassland, desert, agricultural system, and human living quarters. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems, and electrical power was supplied from a natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations. I believe there were 7 scientists living in the Biospehere 2 and they lived inside for a few years. The facility was eventually vandalized and no longer air tight so the projects had to be abandoned. For a while it was for sale and a group was interested in purchasing it to build homes in the area. It is presently managed by the University of Arizona using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things. We found it to be an extremely interesting place to visit and see.
