Indeed. An experiment doesn't "fail" simply because the results aren't what we'd hoped for. Experiments give us information, knowledge with which we can improve. This is fundamentally how science works.
@johnlocke445 I always thought it was erroneous to try to have as many organisms as possible inside, it makes for a far too complex system and one which we could not control.
We are too 'sure' of our intelligence. While there are many who can openly question what we don't know...It's a constant struggle for people to look past what makes them feel comfortable. If we only tried to listen this world would teach us everything we wanted to know.
@Tony Montana I had to double take & re-read this comment...I'm not sure I'd agree with any part of it. I'm also not sure what your implying killed the dinosaurs and an ice age?
@Tony Montana I'm just saying that the point of this comment was that we know far less than we believe we do about all the factors that interconnect our planet. The moment you think you have all the pieces to the puzzle is the moment your wrong.. Most of us won't ever know it all!
Exactly... That is the only failure here. Seems like they thought they could just throw up a closed system and expect to not have to make adjustments and changes that would ultimately allow sustainability.
Major props to Ed Bass. Despite his investment a failure, he still insisted on donating money for the univeristy of arizona for reasearch. I wish most billionaires would be like like him
Just wondering......would you have known about Ed Bass or his donations if this channel didn't spotlight it? I didn't and to be honest I think a lot of billionaires and even millionaires don't get a lot of recognition or exposure for their charitable acts. Good news don't travel as far or as fast compared to bad news. Probably wouldn't even know about this if it didn't fail or was so disastrous. Just saying
I have to give the guy major respect for refusing to give up so quickly. True that many other eccentric billionaires would have thrown in the towel very early and abandoned the project. He kept trying and told his team to keep going. I'm just disappointed that the data was all kept classified. Why? What would anyone gain from having such valuable information kept under cloak and dagger?
May be he didn't see it as a failure. It seems to me that it was the authorities that put a stop to the 2nd experiment, and that he would have happily carried on trying to perfect the experiment if he was allowed to.
This isn't a failure because they learned a lot from it. Could you imagine if we tried to build a base with concrete in space without knowing that it reacted like that.
the reaction was well known by engineers for over a hundred years before this experiment happened. they just never thought to ask a chemist and that's the point. this experiment was mostly set up by none scientists. it was badly planed and not thought through. not one person with micro with a environment background was ever on the project. not the system is open and very little worthwhile study is being done. i cant think of a single paper ever to have come from this massif waste of money and it could have been so good.
Before the 1st landing on the moon on Jul 16, 1969 - Jul 24, 1969 there are about 12 to 20 rocket failures and life-support critical test failures per year going way back in 1945-1946 after WW II after declassification by the U.S military in the late 1970s. The lesson? Don't be afraid of failures, learn from them and move on!
@@leshiro5574 I strongly disagree with that. From a Moon/Mars base simulation point of view, yes it was the end of "the mission" But I'm looking at the bigger picture of how difficult it proves to be to balance the nutritional and environmental needs of plants and animals in a closed system. And from that point of view, we learned so much. It's fascinating to think we might only be years from having the equipment to get us to Mars.. But might not yet know how to survive there without a constant baggage train of resupply. I think we should be doing much more biosphere research and the focus needs to be on learning how to make it work, not challenging it to "just work" and booing when it doesn't.
I love the conclusion. The entire project is widely regarded as a failure, but to the motivated minds, a lesson learned is never a failure. I am grateful for the huge donations and contributions made by this man to support and advance our scientific endeavors. Let us make these mistakes now, for in the future we will be ever more prepared.
My understanding was that no one thought to account for the oxygen consumed by micro-organisms living in the soil. I visited the complex after the University of Arizona acquired it. It was an absolutely amazing and beautiful place. It was obvious that a LOT of careful planning and TLC went into its design, construction, and operation. I highly recommend taking a tour of the facility if tours are still available.
How can this be considered a failure!? It’s incredibly important to understand how a colonization could fail. Imagine trying this on mars and then finding out stabilizing O2 isn’t as easy as in theory. Plus giving supplies for the team is a good idea. It’s like patching the problem so the project could survive enough to learn what works and what doesn’t
I think they failed to create a fully independent *and* biologic biosphere. Adding a CO2 scrubber was considered cheating. Why not also electrolyse water to release more oxygen when needed? That could still be considered a closed system, albeit not a puristic biosphere. A Martian base will certainly not bet the lives of the colonisers on "organic only!" strategies. If a sizeable portion of some resource has to be re-supplied from Earth, so be it! That can probably not go on forever, but who knows what workarounds the colony comes up with after a few years trying. But now we're talking *Permanently Self-Sustaining Life Support* for off-Earth settlements. And that misses the fashionable envirmentalist angle. Maybe just as well...
@@hermanrobak1285 thats a good point. And the fact that this isn’t heavily studied means that any information (practical not theoretical) is very important and informative
But dude……the whole concept is flawed!! That whole structure HAS TO BE WELL BUILT!!! And not by god damned robots either!! AIRTIGHT!!!!! Mistakes, errors are ordinary things on major buildings. On a Martian structure, there’d be deadly consequences!! A crew of 8 can’t survive?? Better send only 2 to mars!!! Two guys!! There’s no sex over there!!!
Rarely do you see millionaires being still faithful and optimistic as much as they could to what they started with. Kudos to Mr. Bass for supporting them through.
The thing I remember about Biosphere 2 were the reports on how the plant life reacted to the enclosed space. Apparently the plant life stopped behaving normally when enclosed and then "adapted" itself. To me this was a profound vindication that we simply don't know very much about our own ecosystem.
But kadabra…..you can’t copy the Martian atmosphere in a lab of that size!! Total unpredictability on the Martian surface, lower gravity on plants and animals?? Good luck recruiting the suicidal colonists!!!
@Jake Songster uuh....do i even mention engineer? I'm not confused one bit. What I'm saying is they probably gonna send various kind of people that excel in their area of expertise. Like botanist, mineralogist etc etc. Not just plain civilian people. Are they not scientist?
I'd say it was more of a success rather than a failure, for because of it, we learned more about how hard it really is to sustain an environment in other planets. We Learned A Lesson
Or perhaps a rather more incremental approach and better analysis. For instance: why simply lock them up and expect things to go well? Why not do 10 days each month for several months and tweak the system before diving in? That seemed like a fool-hearted decision to me.
@@FuriousImp .. I also think that they also wanted to study psychological effects of being in closed environment for long period of time... Jane did mention they ended up into 2groups by end of this experiment... her 2 best friends went against her.
In the long run, experiments like this one are not a total failure. They just get set back a little. Given a little time and research, we can find the problems and fix them. New materials and equipment can be discovered and improved on. Never give up, you will sooner or later find a way around your problems. Look how the airplane has changed since the first plane was invented. Everything has its good and bad points. Its a matter of taking its good points and improving on its bad ones.
As others have pointed out: Biosphere 2 was most definitely NOT a "failed" experiment. While the intended goals were not reached, a great deal of unexpected and new informative data were discovered! The experiences have been referenced countless times for related projects.
Just an FYI to anyone not from the US: while it is 50 miles north of Tucson, Arizona. Tucson is not pronounced “tuss-cun”, like the narrator of this video did. It’s pronounced like “too sawn”, which comes from a Native American word meaning, “at the base of the black hill.” My guess is that he assumed it was pronounced like the Tuscany region of Italy.
@@tiajoseph7309 it’s a pretty reasonable mistake to make, given the adoption of non-native words into English, and certainly one I’ve made with other adoptive words. For example, I remember the first time I said “macabre” out loud and had to be corrected by my dad. I thought it was pronounced like it looks and only after was told it’s pronounced like “macahbra.”
@@OMGnotThatGuy To be honest, English can be pretty annoying some times when it comes to the way certain words are spelled, but yet are pronounced in totally different ways. Even though it goes against everything we learned in school.
@@tiajoseph7309 One of my favorite quotes about English: "English is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary"
@@federicocaputo9966 absolutely must eat martian creeping red fescue, its the best. They should be neutered. Just leave the bum panel open on their space suits for them to deposit... fertilizer. CO2? I believe the martian gophers thrive on it as does the creeping red fescue
Big Ag has done so much to stuff up our planet by degrading the topsoil layer all over the planet and destroying soil bacteria and fungi not to mention breeding plants that can withstand the use of carcinogens like glyphosate. Automatic farming really means "chemical" farming and it uses artificial fertilizers to sustain plant and animal life. These, largely salts, end up leaching out of the soil and into our waterways where they deplete our rivers and oceans. We need a return to permaculture and no-dig systems of farming that concentrate on feeding the soil so it can support our crops. Many farmers are now seeing the light so let's support them.🏳🌈❤🏳🌈❤
@@treeeyed8578 Yes, I am aware of that. I am a 63 year old "out" and proud gay man. I was married for ten years to a wonderful woman who knew my sexuality before we wed. We have a great son who is now 28. The three of us are great mates and continue to have a wonderful relationship although we are now divorced.
That was honestly just funny tbh. I wasn't sure if it was Biosphere 2 from the thumbnail (I have only been there twice) but that pronunciation made it clear as day.
I Know!!! 'Tuck-Son' made me Cringe!! I guesss the British are getting us back for mispronouncing all of their stuff. I saw a video where the American narrator said "ThaYmes" (like "James") for the Thames (as in 'Temms') river. We gotta keep these UA-camr producers in line!!
15:10 “Biosphere 2 leaked just 10% of its oxygen in a year. The space shuttle leaked 2% a day" This is not surprising since the space shuttle was operating in a vacuum whereas the biosphere was surrounded by air at the same pressure as on the inside.
I doubt that the space shuttle "leaked" at all. When they do space walks the airlock can't be completely evacuated of air so some will always get lost to space. And when the shuttle is pressurized the pressure regulator has to have a port that leads to external (space) so there is a slight loss there, but it would be by design. The space shuttle would not have any leaks associated with the hull leaking through seams due to poor design. If it did...I can't find any information on it.
@@replica1052 Really? In toxic water? If they could, I wonder why the fishes don't live in severs... which have less toxic water than Mars would offer.
@@replica1052 Yeah. But it took hundred million+ years for primitive bacteria like organism to evolve. It took billions of years till chemism was good enough for todays organism to survive. You can securely forget terraforming of Mars. Too low gravity, no atmosphere to speak about. Low water amounts. Radiation. Toxic chemicals in dust and water ice.
Thus why its now used to study climate change for earth and current climate issues.😔 All those results are important and why failed are important for future, those conditions were like polar shifts and major climate disasters, same issues occur, and fast approaching.😞'
Considering the amount of money poured into this project, I'm surprised the amount of research was so lacking.. it's pretty obvious that the only thing lacking was proper research.. I don't think technology was the aspect lacking
Totally agree, they were not there to prove the thay can live in there. They where making an experiment so where is the research? Daily physical test of the crew? Daily humidity, oxygen, carbon dioxide, amonia check? Soil fertility check? Phycological state of the crew check? Yield of food? Any plant that shouldn't be in there? Do they need more predators to keep pest down. There is so much I could have tested and I am really far from been an scientist.
@@Johan.... If he was evading taxes he wouldn't have needed to go to such length and kept it running for more than 2 years and then even until now. Way easier ways to donate money and he still choose to do this. And he gave it to the university too, even though he could have just sell it all.
@@AntiTako Bub…..the whole show wasn’t stellar…..but if we have inter planetary ambitions, then that whole site needs to be working NOW!!!!! And for Christ’s sake DON’T LET THEM SEE BLUE SKIES!!! NO WINDOWS OR CAMERAS TO THE OUTSIDE,!! The 8 hated each other in a year?? Are colonists going to be any different???? NOT god damned likely!!! Chew on that ELON!!!!
Awesome video. I visited this place two years ago and got a tour with one of my college classes. It was pretty incredible to explore it and picture the time at which it was actually being used
This wasn't a failure. It was very successful in producing just how unprepared we really are to colonize another planet. It found many weaknesses that were not accounted for and most importantly showed how weak the human psyche really is.
But Bub…..there are literally hundreds of mistakes looming….nobody thought of yet!! Govt. role is, to re-start the site now, to it’s functional stage!! But poopy Joe is waaaaaay too busy, playing war with those god damned Ukrainians!!!
I live near this thing and I’ve walked through it a ton it’s a shame they don’t do much with the place now they do little stuff but mainly use it as a tourist destination.
Bub just the upkeep must be huge!! Did you see robots working on the grounds?? Cleaning windows, painting buildings, mowing the lawn??? They, the robots, built the place after all!!! So the new crew better be more than 8 !!! Maybe 200!!!! So….happy colonizing guys!! Remember….sex is not easy in a space suit!!!
My in home biosphere worked great! It was in the corner of a deep automotive garage. Sheets of protective plastic that were covered in sanding dust, paint over spray, and peed on by my dogs as well as a drunk who wandered in the back door. Also turned out there was a roof leak. When I went to clean it up months later, I found frogs, crickets, very large spiders, flies, hornets, palmetto bugs, and in foggy folds of plastic held clumps of green mossy dirt like material with plants growing in it. The frogs where there and in the neighboring water pockets.
That structure has so much metal in there... and high humidity from all the agriculture and aquaculture going on... You combine high humidity with exposed metal and you start to get rust developing. The process of rusting will remove oxygen in a sealed room. There was an incident on a large container boat, where a few crew members were ordered to go down into some hold that was sealed up tight, they had to remove bolts to take off a panel and create an entrance to the ladder, One guy descended down the ladder first, and halfway down, fell off the ladder and was unresponsive... Another sailor, in an attempts to rescue him... proceeded down the ladder and the same thing happened to him. There was zero oxygen in the hold from it being sealed completely and rusting process removing all the oxygen in the chamber and replacing it with mostly co2
I would not call it a failure. they wanted to know what would happen, they found out sociological discoveries, they discovered things about material science and they figured out how they might make a better version of one is ever made again.
They definitely did stupid things that made it a failure. The experiment was made to research certain things and they were not able to do it because the experiment was poorly designed. Its like doing an experiment to find the speed of light and only figuring out your table is unlevel; yes, you did find something out, no, it was not useful for the actual experiment.
@@SmashToBits it is not a stupid thing.they are testing on what will be the results are and to avoid the danger in future and it already happened and it cannot be useful for the actual experiment but it can be useful for the future experiment.
The education system is the failure here, that makes people think that if an experiment doesn't yield the results that you want then it is a bad experiment, no matter if it provides new insights and solutions to problems that wouldn't have been devised if the experiment hadn't been conducted.
Steve Bannon was actually a part of this project which is so bizzar. Also anyone with a basic high school understanding of space should know that it's IMPOSSIBLE to live in space without all the resources to survive constantly being shipped from Earth.
When the Biosphere 2 started I was an aerospace engineer working on the Environmental Control Life Support System (ECLSS) for the Shuttle and the Space Station at Rockwell International, and then later on for the Lunar Base and Mars mission projects at NASA Langley Research Center. I was keenly interested in the Biosphere 2 project because it was related to my work. I was very disappointed when I later learned on the smuggling of foods into the Biosphere and on the termination of the project. I was somewhat relieved that Bass donated the project to the University of Arizona to continue the research. Since my retirement, I lost track of the Biosphere 2 scientific project.
It seems that many of these issues could have been solved with smaller scale tests. You dont need to spend a billion dollars to find out your flashlight is out of batteries.
@@SmashToBits hey Debbie downer id bet money plenty of small scale tests have been done before this large scale test. And that large scale can make new problems and bring back old issues you thought were solved
@@ragnawreck3968 also small scale experiment will have different result in larger scale. Just because your firecracker could fly it doesn't mean you can use it to go to space with just bigger firecracker.
Back in school, my biology teacher once told us about a demonstration he used to experimentally proof, that plants produce oxygen. Something he himselve got taught while studying biology. The setup was simple: a water plant in a huge glass container filled with water and a upside down test tube to collect rising gasses from the plant. Over a few hours a small amount of gass would collect in the beaker. Oxygen synthesis proven. Right? To increase the demonstrative effect, he always slipped some extra oxygen in the test tube, when nobody was looking. With the class he then extracted the gasses from the tube and did a flame test. Exitement all around. Turns out you can do this with the whole plant as well as with cut of parts. ...Even without any plant at all. The gasses collecting in the test tube where regular air gasses (mostly co2 and nitrogen) dissolved in the cold water, wich fell out of solution once the sunlight heated everything up. Again, it was only a demonstration. Not an actual sientific experiment. The goal was to keep students interestet in biology. But one day he was like "is this kind of bogus sience the right way to instill thesientific spirit in those kids?" And "shuldn't I be able to prove that plants produce oxygen, without resorting to cheap parlor tricks?" I mean, he knew plants produce oxygen, he only never had actually experimentally proven it himselve. So he bought a expensive oxygen meter and a small fish tank he could seal hermetically and startet experimenting with simple closed ecosystems. This story is kind of open ended, because when i graduated, he still where not able to experimentally prove that plants produce oxygen. His story kind of stuck with me over the jears. Taught me a lot about critical thinking and the sientific process back then. As to why he failed? Propably the same reason biosphere 2 failed: bacteria in the soil use more oxygen than the plants can synthesize. Allthough, now there is a non zero possibility that plants actually do not produce any relevant amount of oxygen, based on my biology teachers experiments.
@@DaMilkManMan it's used for a bunch of stuff by the college. They don't seal people up in there anymore like they that but still run a lot of closed loop test. The college was really lucky to get something like this for future students to learn from.
@@DaMilkManMan They do a huge variety of research there now. The coolest thing I think they are doing now is inside one the middle part they build this giant tiltable plat form with soil and all kinds of plants on top of it. And then they run water over it from one side to the other to test different erosion control strategies among other things. But the general reason its still very useful is that even unsealed it allows very fine control over factors like humidity, pressure, tempperature, air currents, ect in a very large space that can then be tested against plant an animal life.
Dude…it’s an abandoned site!! Some academic is holding art classes in there!! AND….who’s maintaining the structures?? Sure as hell NOT ROBOTS!!! Govt. must restore the lab….but poopy Joe is too busy playing war with those god damned Ukrainians!!! Weapons….tax dollars….mayhem at home!!!
@but why Really? Maybe just ask. there are SO many American names that are based off Native languages that seem strange to English speakers who do not grow up with those names. (I grew up in Washington, I have heard a million people mispronounce Sequim, Puyallup and Wenatchee to name a few) But that doesn't mean people should have to spell it out phonetically for others. If you are unsure, or if it looks like there might be multiple ways to say it, ASK, instead of looking like an uneducated, douchebag expecting everyone to spoon feed you since you can't read past a 3rd grade level
@but why also, this was OBVIOUSLY voiced by a Brit. Who would have ZERO reference. Which is the ONLY time I would agree wit spoon feeding it. Whoever gave the script copy for this, SHOULD have given a phonetic spelling/example instead of handing it to him expecting he would automatically expect to know how to read it.
Two years sounded absolutely reasonable back then! It was just 8 People living inside this massive oxygen and food producing facility. There was enough sunlight, enough soil, enough water, enough diversity, every technical aid that seemed to make sense was provided. And the massive airtight structure with its pressure eqalizers was, and still is a technical marvel! It had much public attention from the very start, and I'd say, almost everyone following the news was really surprised (if not to say shocked) by the Oxygen problem. And as this report shows, they were eager and quite confident to solve the problem. I'm thankful they tried that hard, and I'd say its outcome provided plenty relevant data for our biossphere and space colonization.
Even better they should have started with just plants and small animals, keep the ecosystem closed for like a year, monitor how it's doing, then when it's stable enough introduce the humans . Problems like excess carbondioxide could be easily detected even without human trials . They never even tested the facility themselves.
@@genius1a it's a biosphere, it isn't supposed to be maintained, it's supposed to grow naturally . For surveillance they could just fit sensors and cameras. We are surveying mars from earth so that shouldn't be a problem 👀. They literally sent people into an untested area, it's like sending people to moon and hoping they'll survive naturally without any preparations.
@@replica1052 Yes, it's nice to dream... Even if Earth decided to put all its resources to Mars and do that. How do you solve the toxic soil after those few millions of years it takes to have some rain?
@@IronFreee rainwater is non-toxic and the greenhouse effects are self-accumulative (outgassing cause a greenhouse effect that leads to more outgassing)
Perhaps if they concentrated on growing enough food and air instead of recreating earth. Cockroaches and ants? We are talking about a space station on Mars. Honey bees would be useful for pollination and honey. About as exotic as you need to get. What about the microbes in the soil putting out mass amounts of co2. How do you get around that?
Somethings were rushed and other things didn't have enough experimentation data and learning from other experimental concepts before they tried to super size there program. Ended up being very costly but I think with todays technologies and data it would work and scientifically it's not a failure if you get useful data from the research.
@@actualangel5133 potatoes are very versatile plants, can basically grow easily almost anywhere, and Matt Damon, aka Mark Watney from the movie The Martian grew potatoes on mars so he could survive.
Just watched the Pauly Shore movie "Biodome" and while it was kind of cheezy in a funny way - I was facinated to re-learn more about this project. I had no idea it was still operating under the guide of the University! Thank you for sharing this epidode. I was a college senior at the time this was launched and clearly remember seeing the news of the project startup; thinking it was such a groundbreaking achievement, with huge scientific potential for learning about how we CAN live better - to take care of our planet. I hope others today, especially students, look at this project to educate, motivate, and be inspired to make positive changes for a better, planet-healtier, tomorrow.
Wow, what a remarkable experiment 😍 The only thing I don't understand is why people hated the changes were made after the experiment started 🙄 I mean that's how we learn, you can't predict everything just in theory, but during the process you see the problems, correct them and go further your way..to find new obstacles and solutions
They shouldn't have tried to make it work in one shot. Instead, they should have monitored everything and went for a month, analyzed the source of issues and restarted over. Every month or so they will discover subtle issues and test solutions without making it a "complete win" or "complete loss" situation. If no issues are present, they continue without restarting until an issue happens. That's the way to actually fail often and learn to get prepared to the one time you can't fail; i.e. Mars.
There is always unforeseen elements that can just throw u off. Maybe they should have only built half of the project first on survival part then added the non food producing side like the rain forest.
@@lizardman1303 Right. What I tried to say is that you don't take a baby bird and throw it from the edge of a mountain; you instead throw it from one stair step and then from two until it can fly on it's own. We learn from failures, so the more the experiment failed, the more solutions they can try and the more they'll gather an arsenal of precautions that will allow them to do this for real. You don't have to wait one year to see if your declining oxygen levels will kill you, you can simply measure them and see the trend and restart over and try to prevent it before it becomes an actual issue.
@@lake5044 yea after they found out about the oxygen it should have been fixed took the data so they wouldn’t happen agin in future products. Maybe they found a lot of useful data the failures but were to caught up being disconnected from the world vs it being a place of learning
Hello I am Francisco Campas. I'm the 7-year-old child that NASA and the University of Arizona science and optics Labs robbed of his drawing out of classroom three in Prince elementary School 1987. They did not follow my blueprint. Hence why the experiment failed.
Hello once again. I'm the 7 year old who was robbed of his drawing back in 1987. The very last student the very last drawing is the one that won the state's most epic if not the nation's most awesome and most prestigious science competition to ever hit schools.
The only failure was the assumption of an end goal. To be honest I thought it was very successful. We now understand much better on what would be needed for a biosphere on another hostile planet.
Oh wow, I live extreamly close to biosphere 2. Like it's not even a 30 min drive to the place. Didn't know much about it, now I want to go take a visit.
Sure you can. Evolution is brute force clumsy. For all our mistakes and failures, eventually mankind will exceed in purpose all that nature has stumbled into equilibrium.
An experiment does not have to prove your hypothesis to be successful. Biosphere showed what doesn't work, and perhaps after correcting all the mistakes, someone will fund another attempt at self-contained living in the future. It sure makes me appreciate the large biosphere that we all live in!
Just go’s to show if you miss one little cog in a complicated equation it throws off the entire experiment. This is not a failure but a learning lesson for future experiments.
I can’t get over how bad this “experiment” was. They went into it without oxygen?😭 like....... what? Why would they try to grow plants like morning glories when they should have focused on high yielding foods or not even using soil at all, just hydroponics or aquaponics to save space and water. Like it just all makes no sense to me haha
Actually they had a set of land set aside just for food and agriculture. If i remember right they used both soil and aquaponics. The problems were the insects that snuck in and the ones that grew out of control destroyed some of the food also the atmospheric problems also caused growth problems. I seem to also remember a fungal or some kind of blight that killed some of the food crops. The agriculture area did focus on high yield plants but i think it was a nutrient balance problem too as not all the right kinds of food crops were grown (thus the need for vitamins). They were actually trying to replicate the biomes of the earth to make a more natural habitat and to study how they worked with each other.
The only thing that pissed me of was the need to maintain "useless" plants instead of useful high yielding crops. They should have focused more on survivability than analysing a sealed ecosystem. Mainly because to be able to do this you would have to build a dome as big as the one in The Truman Show to get more meaningful data in that regard.
It didn't have to be a failure. It could have been a learning experience. Clearly we weren't ready then, but the failures of Biosphere could save lives in the future. Too bad private money decided not to share the data. This is why governments need to fund these types of projects.
I don't view this as a lesson on how fragile earth's ecological system is, but more of a lesson how little we understand the factors involved.
Indeed. An experiment doesn't "fail" simply because the results aren't what we'd hoped for. Experiments give us information, knowledge with which we can improve. This is fundamentally how science works.
@johnlocke445 I always thought it was erroneous to try to have as many organisms as possible inside, it makes for a far too complex system and one which we could not control.
We are too 'sure' of our intelligence. While there are many who can openly question what we don't know...It's a constant struggle for people to look past what makes them feel comfortable. If we only tried to listen this world would teach us everything we wanted to know.
@Tony Montana I had to double take & re-read this comment...I'm not sure I'd agree with any part of it. I'm also not sure what your implying killed the dinosaurs and an ice age?
@Tony Montana I'm just saying that the point of this comment was that we know far less than we believe we do about all the factors that interconnect our planet. The moment you think you have all the pieces to the puzzle is the moment your wrong.. Most of us won't ever know it all!
Sometimes youtube recommendation makes wonders, great channel, great quality, great narration, instant subs..
Sometimes...
it does
Except when they pronounce Tuscon, Arizona as “Tuss cun” instead of “Too sawn.” That had me cringing 30 seconds into the video.
@@OMGnotThatGuy oh hey you're from Arizona...how are you doing? I heard there's been a massive election fraud there...
That's infuriating that the lessons learned from it were kept private.
It was kept private because it was ultimately a failure overall.
@@davidfreeman1774 even failures have data.
Exactly... That is the only failure here. Seems like they thought they could just throw up a closed system and expect to not have to make adjustments and changes that would ultimately allow sustainability.
Elon Musk " I want to put 1 million people on Mars "
This project: nooooope
@@hajorm.a3474 well he doesn't care if they live, he just wants to launch them.
Major props to Ed Bass. Despite his investment a failure, he still insisted on donating money for the univeristy of arizona for reasearch. I wish most billionaires would be like like him
Just wondering......would you have known about Ed Bass or his donations if this channel didn't spotlight it? I didn't and to be honest I think a lot of billionaires and even millionaires don't get a lot of recognition or exposure for their charitable acts. Good news don't travel as far or as fast compared to bad news. Probably wouldn't even know about this if it didn't fail or was so disastrous. Just saying
I have to give the guy major respect for refusing to give up so quickly. True that many other eccentric billionaires would have thrown in the towel very early and abandoned the project. He kept trying and told his team to keep going. I'm just disappointed that the data was all kept classified. Why? What would anyone gain from having such valuable information kept under cloak and dagger?
@@largol33t1 one thing come to mind is tax evasion. Not saying that's the reason he did it but it could be. Just putting it out there
Major tax write off for Mr. Bass.
May be he didn't see it as a failure. It seems to me that it was the authorities that put a stop to the 2nd experiment, and that he would have happily carried on trying to perfect the experiment if he was allowed to.
This isn't a failure because they learned a lot from it. Could you imagine if we tried to build a base with concrete in space without knowing that it reacted like that.
Agree.
the reaction was well known by engineers for over a hundred years before this experiment happened. they just never thought to ask a chemist and that's the point. this experiment was mostly set up by none scientists. it was badly planed and not thought through. not one person with micro with a environment background was ever on the project. not the system is open and very little worthwhile study is being done. i cant think of a single paper ever to have come from this massif waste of money and it could have been so good.
@@tommyfred6180You’re spelling and grammar is horrible. Please stop writing paragraphs on the net. You’re out here looking like a goddamn fool Tom.
@@freshone274 i'm dyslexic mate. your profile and on line presence is now part of a phd study. thanks for playing. :)
Before the 1st landing on the moon on Jul 16, 1969 - Jul 24, 1969 there are about 12 to 20 rocket failures and life-support critical test failures per year going way back in 1945-1946 after WW II after declassification by the U.S military in the late 1970s. The lesson? Don't be afraid of failures, learn from them and move on!
Did yone else just randomly find this video and say oh ok
Notifications..
Yes lol
Yo Fr😂
@@brandonbeavisinvestment5294 Shut up bot
Bruh it's recommendations stop seeing it like a miracle..... y'all in 1880?
It wasn't a failure, this is how we learn.
Exactly
It was a failure the moment that woman severed her finger out of incompetence and the doors were open.
@@leshiro5574 I strongly disagree with that. From a Moon/Mars base simulation point of view, yes it was the end of "the mission" But I'm looking at the bigger picture of how difficult it proves to be to balance the nutritional and environmental needs of plants and animals in a closed system. And from that point of view, we learned so much. It's fascinating to think we might only be years from having the equipment to get us to Mars.. But might not yet know how to survive there without a constant baggage train of resupply. I think we should be doing much more biosphere research and the focus needs to be on learning how to make it work, not challenging it to "just work" and booing when it doesn't.
Precisely
It's a failure coz it's goals were not achieved. But, we learned so much it a success
Credit to Edward Bass. He put his money where his mouth is. Unlike modern celebrities and businessmen who talk about it then take a private jet home.
salute to edward bass
I dont know,.... doctor gates seems pretty sure he and his vaccine company have the cure or corona.
Most celebrities just take the jet. Only a few pay the lip service for PR reasons.
He's a bit like Elon Musk
Yup definitely let the credits to Edward Bass
I love the conclusion. The entire project is widely regarded as a failure, but to the motivated minds, a lesson learned is never a failure. I am grateful for the huge donations and contributions made by this man to support and advance our scientific endeavors. Let us make these mistakes now, for in the future we will be ever more prepared.
My understanding was that no one thought to account for the oxygen consumed by micro-organisms living in the soil. I visited the complex after the University of Arizona acquired it. It was an absolutely amazing and beautiful place. It was obvious that a LOT of careful planning and TLC went into its design, construction, and operation. I highly recommend taking a tour of the facility if tours are still available.
It's really open for tours?!? O.O That's so cool!
Mumble grumble stupid covid mumble grumble
How can this be considered a failure!? It’s incredibly important to understand how a colonization could fail. Imagine trying this on mars and then finding out stabilizing O2 isn’t as easy as in theory. Plus giving supplies for the team is a good idea. It’s like patching the problem so the project could survive enough to learn what works and what doesn’t
I think they failed to create a fully independent *and* biologic biosphere. Adding a CO2 scrubber was considered cheating. Why not also electrolyse water to release more oxygen when needed? That could still be considered a closed system, albeit not a puristic biosphere.
A Martian base will certainly not bet the lives of the colonisers on "organic only!" strategies. If a sizeable portion of some resource has to be re-supplied from Earth, so be it! That can probably not go on forever, but who knows what workarounds the colony comes up with after a few years trying.
But now we're talking *Permanently Self-Sustaining Life Support* for off-Earth settlements. And that misses the fashionable envirmentalist angle. Maybe just as well...
@@hermanrobak1285 thats a good point. And the fact that this isn’t heavily studied means that any information (practical not theoretical) is very important and informative
But dude……the whole concept is flawed!! That whole structure HAS TO BE WELL BUILT!!! And not by god damned robots either!! AIRTIGHT!!!!! Mistakes, errors are ordinary things on major buildings. On a Martian structure, there’d be deadly consequences!! A crew of 8 can’t survive?? Better send only 2 to mars!!! Two guys!! There’s no sex over there!!!
Rarely do you see millionaires being still faithful and optimistic as much as they could to what they started with. Kudos to Mr. Bass for supporting them through.
Bass was is a billionaire.
It's called sunk cost fallacy, check it out.
Goody..goody Bass is doing this shit for his own financial benefit!! Nothing else!!!
when your most notable legacy is summed up in a pauly shore movie
I will always call this project biodome 😂
Ha bio dome... Love Pauly shore
I know what you're thinking illegal illegal but I say we grow these seeds
@@badtouch7340 💯🙌
Ha ha ha ha, I just said the same thing!
Entire team can't figure out to sustain themselves. Matt Daemon: "Hold my potato."
After just watching the martian, this is hilarious
The thing I remember about Biosphere 2 were the reports on how the plant life reacted to the enclosed space. Apparently the plant life stopped behaving normally when enclosed and then "adapted" itself. To me this was a profound vindication that we simply don't know very much about our own ecosystem.
Underrated comment.
But kadabra…..you can’t copy the Martian atmosphere in a lab of that size!! Total unpredictability on the Martian surface, lower gravity on plants and animals?? Good luck recruiting the suicidal colonists!!!
Anyone else thinks its ironic that Jane pointer lost her finger
all good, they made a point of reattaching it
Haha!
Gosh darn
At least she didn't lose her vector.
@@FranktheDachshund
victor (reference from Airplane,, )
So many millions spent for scientific knowledge - but without scientists.
Money not only make you rich and idiot it's also make you think as scientist 😆...... yea money can buy everything other then brain 🧠
@@fmlmobilelegend9723 money can buy you brain 🧠 but not intelligence
Edit: like a literal physical brain 🧠
@@infernohomura2941 lmao
@Jake Songster Even spaceX once they reach Mars the first people that will live there will be scientist.
@Jake Songster uuh....do i even mention engineer? I'm not confused one bit. What I'm saying is they probably gonna send various kind of people that excel in their area of expertise. Like botanist, mineralogist etc etc. Not just plain civilian people. Are they not scientist?
I'd say it was more of a success rather than a failure, for because of it, we learned more about how hard it really is to sustain an environment in other planets. We Learned A Lesson
No u got it wrong
Idiot
Biosphere experiment was meant to be as normal as possible
Even a mouse trap is considered inappropriate in it
They didnt even use 1800s agricultural tech, if they had used technology in biosphere it could have been different
I swear this story helped inspire Vault-Tec in the Fallout franchise
Seller: How many acres do you need?
Biosphere team: Pi.
I wonder if anybody actually ever verified that? Sounds like something someone will put in a press release to be cute.
The fact none were professional scientists would not have helped.
I wonder if some issues could have been foreseen with better research and planning.
Or perhaps a rather more incremental approach and better analysis. For instance: why simply lock them up and expect things to go well? Why not do 10 days each month for several months and tweak the system before diving in? That seemed like a fool-hearted decision to me.
Jan Cloosterman because that wouldn’t be as dramatic as them waving goodbye to the camera while being locked in.
@@FuriousImp we might run into this problem once more, when space exploration goes the populistic way...
@@FuriousImp .. I also think that they also wanted to study psychological effects of being in closed environment for long period of time... Jane did mention they ended up into 2groups by end of this experiment... her 2 best friends went against her.
@@neovxr No they will all just die.
In the long run, experiments like this one are not a total failure. They just get set back a little. Given a little time and research, we can find the problems and fix them. New materials and equipment can be discovered and improved on. Never give up, you will sooner or later find a way around your problems. Look how the airplane has changed since the first plane was invented. Everything has its good and bad points. Its a matter of taking its good points and improving on its bad ones.
So dude….is the place running now??? The new space crew?? 100this time!! OR….Some lefty whacko is running classes with drag queens out of there!!!
This video should be renamed "What didn't go wrong...."
Agree
As others have pointed out: Biosphere 2 was most definitely NOT a "failed" experiment. While the intended goals were not reached, a great deal of unexpected and new informative data were discovered! The experiences have been referenced countless times for related projects.
Just an FYI to anyone not from the US: while it is 50 miles north of Tucson, Arizona. Tucson is not pronounced “tuss-cun”, like the narrator of this video did. It’s pronounced like “too sawn”, which comes from a Native American word meaning, “at the base of the black hill.” My guess is that he assumed it was pronounced like the Tuscany region of Italy.
TUCSON OR TUSCON?
Wow, the more you learn. I'm American, and I've always pronounced it like "tuss-cun".
@@tiajoseph7309 it’s a pretty reasonable mistake to make, given the adoption of non-native words into English, and certainly one I’ve made with other adoptive words.
For example, I remember the first time I said “macabre” out loud and had to be corrected by my dad. I thought it was pronounced like it looks and only after was told it’s pronounced like “macahbra.”
@@OMGnotThatGuy To be honest, English can be pretty annoying some times when it comes to the way certain words are spelled, but yet are pronounced in totally different ways. Even though it goes against everything we learned in school.
@@tiajoseph7309 One of my favorite quotes about English:
"English is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary"
What a great channel glad I found you . Thanks for all the hard work
"You cant just shoot a garden into the surface of Mars"
*puts away garden canon*
Back to the drawing board I guess.
@@TheSolitaryEye
DOOM SLAYER: *garden cannon goes Brrrrrr*
Mars soil has no nutrients. No cows to shit and make it fertile. First send cows up to fertilize the land... Cows with space suits... 😫🙄
@@sonshinelight
1. What do the cows eat?
2. How do they shit?
3. How do they reproduce?
4. Cows produce a considerable amount of CO2
:v
@@federicocaputo9966 absolutely must eat martian creeping red fescue, its the best. They should be neutered. Just leave the bum panel open on their space suits for them to deposit... fertilizer. CO2? I believe the martian gophers thrive on it as does the creeping red fescue
they could use this to research automatic farming, that would be very useful here on Earth, too
Big Ag has done so much to stuff up our planet by degrading the topsoil layer all over the planet and destroying soil bacteria and fungi not to mention breeding plants that can withstand the use of carcinogens like glyphosate. Automatic farming really means "chemical" farming and it uses artificial fertilizers to sustain plant and animal life. These, largely salts, end up leaching out of the soil and into our waterways where they deplete our rivers and oceans. We need a return to permaculture and no-dig systems of farming that concentrate on feeding the soil so it can support our crops. Many farmers are now seeing the light so let's support them.🏳🌈❤🏳🌈❤
@@peterturner1582 those are the gay flag you know that right?
@@treeeyed8578 Yes, I am aware of that. I am a 63 year old "out" and proud gay man. I was married for ten years to a wonderful woman who knew my sexuality before we wed. We have a great son who is now 28. The three of us are great mates and continue to have a wonderful relationship although we are now divorced.
@@peterturner1582 oh ok happy you had a happy life so far
@@treeeyed8578 Thanks mate...best wishes in return.
“TOO-SAWN”, NOT “TUS-CAN” ☹️
We gotta run the sawmill less, this crop is Too Sawn...
That was honestly just funny tbh. I wasn't sure if it was Biosphere 2 from the thumbnail (I have only been there twice) but that pronunciation made it clear as day.
I Know!!! 'Tuck-Son' made me Cringe!! I guesss the British are getting us back for mispronouncing all of their stuff. I saw a video where the American narrator said "ThaYmes" (like "James") for the Thames (as in 'Temms') river. We gotta keep these UA-camr producers in line!!
Two son
Yep!
15:10 “Biosphere 2 leaked just 10% of its oxygen in a year. The space shuttle leaked 2% a day"
This is not surprising since the space shuttle was operating in a vacuum whereas the biosphere was surrounded by air at the same pressure as on the inside.
I doubt that the space shuttle "leaked" at all. When they do space walks the airlock can't be completely evacuated of air so some will always get lost to space. And when the shuttle is pressurized the pressure regulator has to have a port that leads to external (space) so there is a slight loss there, but it would be by design. The space shuttle would not have any leaks associated with the hull leaking through seams due to poor design. If it did...I can't find any information on it.
@@michaeljorgensen790 Good info, thanks.
This recommended video turned out to be one of the most insightful Clips I've ever seen on UA-cam
This tells us, that we need to be able to create fully enclosed system here on Earth, before we will try to establish similar thing on other planet.
once it rains fish can survive mars nature
@@replica1052 Really? In toxic water? If they could, I wonder why the fishes don't live in severs... which have less toxic water than Mars would offer.
@@petersvancarek (life began in the oceans)
@@replica1052 Yeah. But it took hundred million+ years for primitive bacteria like organism to evolve. It took billions of years till chemism was good enough for todays organism to survive.
You can securely forget terraforming of Mars. Too low gravity, no atmosphere to speak about. Low water amounts. Radiation. Toxic chemicals in dust and water ice.
Thus why its now used to study climate change for earth and current climate issues.😔 All those results are important and why failed are important for future, those conditions were like polar shifts and major climate disasters, same issues occur, and fast approaching.😞'
Considering the amount of money poured into this project, I'm surprised the amount of research was so lacking.. it's pretty obvious that the only thing lacking was proper research.. I don't think technology was the aspect lacking
Totally agree, they were not there to prove the thay can live in there. They where making an experiment so where is the research? Daily physical test of the crew? Daily humidity, oxygen, carbon dioxide, amonia check? Soil fertility check? Phycological state of the crew check? Yield of food? Any plant that shouldn't be in there? Do they need more predators to keep pest down. There is so much I could have tested and I am really far from been an scientist.
probably evading tax.
@@Johan.... If he was evading taxes he wouldn't have needed to go to such length and kept it running for more than 2 years and then even until now. Way easier ways to donate money and he still choose to do this. And he gave it to the university too, even though he could have just sell it all.
@@AntiTako Bub…..the whole show wasn’t stellar…..but if we have inter planetary ambitions, then that whole site needs to be working NOW!!!!! And for Christ’s sake DON’T LET THEM SEE BLUE SKIES!!! NO WINDOWS OR CAMERAS TO THE OUTSIDE,!! The 8 hated each other in a year?? Are colonists going to be any different???? NOT god damned likely!!! Chew on that ELON!!!!
@@anhduc0913 and the university is full of lefty transes pretending to be teachers!! Have you seen any of these whackos lately???
Awesome video. I visited this place two years ago and got a tour with one of my college classes. It was pretty incredible to explore it and picture the time at which it was actually being used
So Ryan…..why do you think the place is abandoned??? Govt funding should go to this project instead of playing war with them fucking Ukrainians!!!
This wasn't a failure. It was very successful in producing just how unprepared we really are to colonize another planet. It found many weaknesses that were not accounted for and most importantly showed how weak the human psyche really is.
But Bub…..there are literally hundreds of mistakes looming….nobody thought of yet!! Govt. role is, to re-start the site now, to it’s functional stage!! But poopy Joe is waaaaaay too busy, playing war with those god damned Ukrainians!!!
I live near this thing and I’ve walked through it a ton it’s a shame they don’t do much with the place now they do little stuff but mainly use it as a tourist destination.
True, it seems like a good basis for follow up experiments until we know how to do it better. If only Elon Musk or some other inspiration person ...
Bub just the upkeep must be huge!! Did you see robots working on the grounds?? Cleaning windows, painting buildings, mowing the lawn??? They, the robots, built the place after all!!! So the new crew better be more than 8 !!! Maybe 200!!!! So….happy colonizing guys!! Remember….sex is not easy in a space suit!!!
The pronunciation of “Tucson” tripped me up as a child...
Tus can same here.
Two-sun?
@@AntneeUK too-sawn. Trust me. I grew up and live in Arizona. 44 yrs now.
@@lopaka76 aye, that makes sense. "Tuck-sun" or "Tuss-can" definitely not correct 😁
@@lopaka76 isn't that literally the same? Maybe the vowel in "son" is slightly dragged out.
I was very excited by this project as a kid but somehow never heard what had happened.
My in home biosphere worked great! It was in the corner of a deep automotive garage.
Sheets of protective plastic that were covered in sanding dust, paint over spray, and peed on by my dogs as well as a drunk who wandered in the back door. Also turned out there was a roof leak.
When I went to clean it up months later, I found frogs, crickets, very large spiders, flies, hornets, palmetto bugs, and in foggy folds of plastic held clumps of green mossy dirt like material with plants growing in it. The frogs where there and in the neighboring water pockets.
That structure has so much metal in there... and high humidity from all the agriculture and aquaculture going on...
You combine high humidity with exposed metal and you start to get rust developing.
The process of rusting will remove oxygen in a sealed room.
There was an incident on a large container boat, where a few crew members were ordered to go down into some hold that was sealed up tight, they had to remove bolts to take off a panel and create an entrance to the ladder, One guy descended down the ladder first, and halfway down, fell off the ladder and was unresponsive... Another sailor, in an attempts to rescue him... proceeded down the ladder and the same thing happened to him. There was zero oxygen in the hold from it being sealed completely and rusting process removing all the oxygen in the chamber and replacing it with mostly co2
I would not call it a failure. they wanted to know what would happen, they found out sociological discoveries, they discovered things about material science and they figured out how they might make a better version of one is ever made again.
They definitely did stupid things that made it a failure. The experiment was made to research certain things and they were not able to do it because the experiment was poorly designed. Its like doing an experiment to find the speed of light and only figuring out your table is unlevel; yes, you did find something out, no, it was not useful for the actual experiment.
@@SmashToBits it is not a stupid thing.they are testing on what will be the results are and to avoid the danger in future and it already happened and it cannot be useful for the actual experiment but it can be useful for the future experiment.
@@SmashToBits but when it success in future. You will be completely guilty of what you said
The education system is the failure here, that makes people think that if an experiment doesn't yield the results that you want then it is a bad experiment, no matter if it provides new insights and solutions to problems that wouldn't have been devised if the experiment hadn't been conducted.
not a failure; now know needed facts
Steve Bannon was actually a part of this project which is so bizzar. Also anyone with a basic high school understanding of space should know that it's IMPOSSIBLE to live in space without all the resources to survive constantly being shipped from Earth.
TIL Steve Bannon was here. I don't know what to make of that.
This Ed Bass sounds like a real cool guy. Thanks for giving so much to research and development my dude.
When the Biosphere 2 started I was an aerospace engineer working on the Environmental Control Life Support System (ECLSS) for the Shuttle and the Space Station at Rockwell International, and then later on for the Lunar Base and Mars mission projects at NASA Langley Research Center. I was keenly interested in the Biosphere 2 project because it was related to my work. I was very disappointed when I later learned on the smuggling of foods into the Biosphere and on the termination of the project. I was somewhat relieved that Bass donated the project to the University of Arizona to continue the research. Since my retirement, I lost track of the Biosphere 2 scientific project.
It's 1900s now it's 2021?
RIGHT?
*LOL*
Why does he sound like "Kurzgesagt - In a nutshell" ??
totally
5:21
Me: waiT a MinuTe-
space
taks
HMm-
*AmoNg uS InTEnSifiEs- *
no
Interesting! Thank you! I learned new and interesting things today! Keep it up!!
Even after the first few minutes, it is clear that, this video is very well made. Great work!
I do not believe this experiment was a failure it clearly gave us useful data, that in itself is a success.
It seems that many of these issues could have been solved with smaller scale tests. You dont need to spend a billion dollars to find out your flashlight is out of batteries.
@@SmashToBits hey Debbie downer id bet money plenty of small scale tests have been done before this large scale test. And that large scale can make new problems and bring back old issues you thought were solved
@@ragnawreck3968 also small scale experiment will have different result in larger scale.
Just because your firecracker could fly it doesn't mean you can use it to go to space with just bigger firecracker.
@@ReigoVassal inst that what a rocket is?
@@richoz27 Yes, but actually no. The mechanical inside the rocket is different.
Lmao.... I didn’t know the movie biodome was based off of this
The town is pronounced Two-saun... say two, then the first part of sauna... My daughter had a field trip inside... great stuff
THE PERFECT NARRATOR! Clear and precise and easy to understand. Well put together video and music is complementary and not overbearing! Good job
Back in school, my biology teacher once told us about a demonstration he used to experimentally proof, that plants produce oxygen. Something he himselve got taught while studying biology. The setup was simple: a water plant in a huge glass container filled with water and a upside down test tube to collect rising gasses from the plant.
Over a few hours a small amount of gass would collect in the beaker.
Oxygen synthesis proven. Right?
To increase the demonstrative effect, he always slipped some extra oxygen in the test tube, when nobody was looking. With the class he then extracted the gasses from the tube and did a flame test. Exitement all around.
Turns out you can do this with the whole plant as well as with cut of parts. ...Even without any plant at all. The gasses collecting in the test tube where regular air gasses (mostly co2 and nitrogen) dissolved in the cold water, wich fell out of solution once the sunlight heated everything up.
Again, it was only a demonstration. Not an actual sientific experiment. The goal was to keep students interestet in biology.
But one day he was like "is this kind of bogus sience the right way to instill thesientific spirit in those kids?" And "shuldn't I be able to prove that plants produce oxygen, without resorting to cheap parlor tricks?" I mean, he knew plants produce oxygen, he only never had actually experimentally proven it himselve.
So he bought a expensive oxygen meter and a small fish tank he could seal hermetically and startet experimenting with simple closed ecosystems.
This story is kind of open ended, because when i graduated, he still where not able to experimentally prove that plants produce oxygen.
His story kind of stuck with me over the jears. Taught me a lot about critical thinking and the sientific process back then.
As to why he failed?
Propably the same reason biosphere 2 failed: bacteria in the soil use more oxygen than the plants can synthesize. Allthough, now there is a non zero possibility that plants actually do not produce any relevant amount of oxygen, based on my biology teachers experiments.
The old bio dome, it's still there and being used.
Do they still use it for the same purposes or other reasons?
@@DaMilkManMan it's used for a bunch of stuff by the college. They don't seal people up in there anymore like they that but still run a lot of closed loop test. The college was really lucky to get something like this for future students to learn from.
@@DaMilkManMan They do a huge variety of research there now. The coolest thing I think they are doing now is inside one the middle part they build this giant tiltable plat form with soil and all kinds of plants on top of it. And then they run water over it from one side to the other to test different erosion control strategies among other things. But the general reason its still very useful is that even unsealed it allows very fine control over factors like humidity, pressure, tempperature, air currents, ect in a very large space that can then be tested against plant an animal life.
Although unfortunately many things went wrong, we still learn so much thanks to it. As a science experiment, I'd say it was a huge success
Dude…it’s an abandoned site!! Some academic is holding art classes in there!! AND….who’s maintaining the structures?? Sure as hell NOT ROBOTS!!! Govt. must restore the lab….but poopy Joe is too busy playing war with those god damned Ukrainians!!! Weapons….tax dollars….mayhem at home!!!
Some people may call it a failure, but out of every failure is a lesson learned. We can take what went wrong and improve on it.
Not if they keep those lessons private.
I agree completley, trial and error is essential for scientific progress 😁
The worst failure of the experiment was the creation of big brother.
A new big brother is coming January 4th i believe in the Netherlands, can't wait tho 🌚
Half an acre sustained 8 people for 2 years? Lol and I can't even get a pot to grow a flower
Did you just call my city "Tuck-son" EDIT: even worse, you called it Tuscan
That's just how we talk in Tucson, Arazonia
Lmao I'ma call it that now
@but why Really? Maybe just ask. there are SO many American names that are based off Native languages that seem strange to English speakers who do not grow up with those names. (I grew up in Washington, I have heard a million people mispronounce Sequim, Puyallup and Wenatchee to name a few) But that doesn't mean people should have to spell it out phonetically for others. If you are unsure, or if it looks like there might be multiple ways to say it, ASK, instead of looking like an uneducated, douchebag expecting everyone to spoon feed you since you can't read past a 3rd grade level
@but why also, this was OBVIOUSLY voiced by a Brit. Who would have ZERO reference. Which is the ONLY time I would agree wit spoon feeding it. Whoever gave the script copy for this, SHOULD have given a phonetic spelling/example instead of handing it to him expecting he would automatically expect to know how to read it.
Why go for 2 years at the very beginning? A lot of these issues would have been known had they done 90 days to begin with. Fix it then try again.
It might be afraid from media pressure.
Two years sounded absolutely reasonable back then! It was just 8 People living inside this massive oxygen and food producing facility. There was enough sunlight, enough soil, enough water, enough diversity, every technical aid that seemed to make sense was provided. And the massive airtight structure with its pressure eqalizers was, and still is a technical marvel! It had much public attention from the very start, and I'd say, almost everyone following the news was really surprised (if not to say shocked) by the Oxygen problem.
And as this report shows, they were eager and quite confident to solve the problem.
I'm thankful they tried that hard, and I'd say its outcome provided plenty relevant data for our biossphere and space colonization.
Even better they should have started with just plants and small animals, keep the ecosystem closed for like a year, monitor how it's doing, then when it's stable enough introduce the humans . Problems like excess carbondioxide could be easily detected even without human trials . They never even tested the facility themselves.
@@eheboi9278 Who would have monitored the animals? Who would have run the fields in the facility? Should they have gone in in Space suits?
@@genius1a it's a biosphere, it isn't supposed to be maintained, it's supposed to grow naturally . For surveillance they could just fit sensors and cameras. We are surveying mars from earth so that shouldn't be a problem 👀. They literally sent people into an untested area, it's like sending people to moon and hoping they'll survive naturally without any preparations.
I imagine it was far more successful than any Martian biosphere will be.
once it rains fish can survive mars nature
@@replica1052 That's not true, but how do you intend to do that?
@@IronFreee outgas co2 with reflectors to start a greenhouse effect
@@replica1052 Yes, it's nice to dream... Even if Earth decided to put all its resources to Mars and do that. How do you solve the toxic soil after those few millions of years it takes to have some rain?
@@IronFreee rainwater is non-toxic and the greenhouse effects are self-accumulative (outgassing cause a greenhouse effect that leads to more outgassing)
Neat. Thanks for the fine update. 🌱
This experiment wasn't a failure.
Anyone looking to create a mars biosphere would find these results exceptionally valuable.
Perhaps if they concentrated on growing enough food and air instead of recreating earth. Cockroaches and ants? We are talking about a space station on Mars. Honey bees would be useful for pollination and honey. About as exotic as you need to get. What about the microbes in the soil putting out mass amounts of co2. How do you get around that?
Somethings were rushed and other things didn't have enough experimentation data and learning from other experimental concepts before they tried to super size there program. Ended up being very costly but I think with todays technologies and data it would work and scientifically it's not a failure if you get useful data from the research.
Mark Watney: They obviously didn't have enough potato plants!
What do potatoes 🥔 do?
@@actualangel5133 potatoes are very versatile plants, can basically grow easily almost anywhere, and Matt Damon, aka Mark Watney from the movie The Martian grew potatoes on mars so he could survive.
$200,000,000.00 and they couldn't feed 8 people!
Let's put the experts in charge of the whole planet!
Just watched the Pauly Shore movie "Biodome" and while it was kind of cheezy in a funny way - I was facinated to re-learn more about this project. I had no idea it was still operating under the guide of the University! Thank you for sharing this epidode. I was a college senior at the time this was launched and clearly remember seeing the news of the project startup; thinking it was such a groundbreaking achievement, with huge scientific potential for learning about how we CAN live better - to take care of our planet. I hope others today, especially students, look at this project to educate, motivate, and be inspired to make positive changes for a better, planet-healtier, tomorrow.
Seems like they learned a lot from this project; not a failiure
Most of the data is lost or hasn’t been analyzed
Yet one astronaut on Mars could figure out how to survive for over a year eating potatoes grown in his own poop..
Lmao I saw that movie too but just in case you’re being serious you know it’s not real right
"and Watney died in his sleep of suffocation because the bacteria in his poop emited high levels of CO2 without him realising"
I believe that would be methane
@@hawkeyepierce2017
Bacteria emit CO2 also.
Yeah but that was Jason Bourne.
Was the largest experiment on earth until 2020 said hold my beer
I laughed pretty hard at your comment ..... So true! Be safe out there @D Army 👍
@@dancingwiththedogsdj thank you and same to you :)
🤣😂🤣😂🤣. "Tuskin," Arizona. Watch out for those Tuskin Raiders when you visit!!!!
Wow, what a remarkable experiment 😍
The only thing I don't understand is why people hated the changes were made after the experiment started 🙄 I mean that's how we learn, you can't predict everything just in theory, but during the process you see the problems, correct them and go further your way..to find new obstacles and solutions
But Bub…..mistakes of any size or description will have major, if not deadly consequences in a space colony! Lunar or Martian!!
4 men 4 women. 2 years. Stuck in a dome. Sounds like a lot of intercourses if you ask me.
Conservation of energy yo
No wonder they ran out of oxygen
We studied this experiment in my high school class it was super interesting. We studied it for like a month.
Did you split into two groups
@@leroy-nn6tm no we didn’t.
@@leroy-nn6tm lol
They shouldn't have tried to make it work in one shot. Instead, they should have monitored everything and went for a month, analyzed the source of issues and restarted over. Every month or so they will discover subtle issues and test solutions without making it a "complete win" or "complete loss" situation. If no issues are present, they continue without restarting until an issue happens. That's the way to actually fail often and learn to get prepared to the one time you can't fail; i.e. Mars.
There is always unforeseen elements that can just throw u off. Maybe they should have only built half of the project first on survival part then added the non food producing side like the rain forest.
@@lizardman1303 Right. What I tried to say is that you don't take a baby bird and throw it from the edge of a mountain; you instead throw it from one stair step and then from two until it can fly on it's own. We learn from failures, so the more the experiment failed, the more solutions they can try and the more they'll gather an arsenal of precautions that will allow them to do this for real. You don't have to wait one year to see if your declining oxygen levels will kill you, you can simply measure them and see the trend and restart over and try to prevent it before it becomes an actual issue.
@@lake5044 yea after they found out about the oxygen it should have been fixed took the data so they wouldn’t happen agin in future products. Maybe they found a lot of useful data the failures but were to caught up being disconnected from the world vs it being a place of learning
Hello I am Francisco Campas. I'm the 7-year-old child that NASA and the University of Arizona science and optics Labs robbed of his drawing out of classroom three in Prince elementary School 1987. They did not follow my blueprint. Hence why the experiment failed.
Hello once again. I'm the 7 year old who was robbed of his drawing back in 1987. The very last student the very last drawing is the one that won the state's most epic if not the nation's most awesome and most prestigious science competition to ever hit schools.
Should of had Matt Damon there to science the shit out of the problems.
It was a big success because of its failures. We learn and not make the same mistakes when we go to Mars but the moon will and should be first.
We need to fix the problems we have caused on Earth before we consider living elsewhere and f#@cking those places as well.
Living in space is a pipe dream!
@@oldschoolman1444 I agree. We cannot begin to live on an other planet until we fix Earth.
The real problem is that most of the research data was obfuscated or destroyed, so we can't learn much form it.
The only failure was the assumption of an end goal. To be honest I thought it was very successful. We now understand much better on what would be needed for a biosphere on another hostile planet.
Jammit. Would you be willing to move into that environment on the Martian surface???
Oh wow, I live extreamly close to biosphere 2. Like it's not even a 30 min drive to the place. Didn't know much about it, now I want to go take a visit.
I just remembered this way back, especially when it had its own comedy movie...BIODOME! 😂
You sound like the kurzgezat “in a nutshell” guy and it’s perfect
Honestly, it does sound the same. with a different light accent maybe.
0:35 really? You think It’s pronounced Tuss-conn? Try saying it this way: Too-sawn.
Even as earth being a closed system it is self sufficient
You can't rival nature
Sure you can. Evolution is brute force clumsy. For all our mistakes and failures, eventually mankind will exceed in purpose all that nature has stumbled into equilibrium.
earth is not a closed system.... we get energy from outside the earth
@@SmashToBits I was talking about the chemical composition
An experiment does not have to prove your hypothesis to be successful. Biosphere showed what doesn't work, and perhaps after correcting all the mistakes, someone will fund another attempt at self-contained living in the future. It sure makes me appreciate the large biosphere that we all live in!
Just go’s to show if you miss one little cog in a complicated equation it throws off the entire experiment. This is not a failure but a learning lesson for future experiments.
They should have put paulie shore in there, he would have saved the whole thing
I can't believe how far I had to scroll down to find a biodome reference
@@stevenwoodbury4227 was just thinking the same lol.
I can’t get over how bad this “experiment” was. They went into it without oxygen?😭 like....... what? Why would they try to grow plants like morning glories when they should have focused on high yielding foods or not even using soil at all, just hydroponics or aquaponics to save space and water. Like it just all makes no sense to me haha
They tried to mimick nature as thoroughly as possible.
@@HansDunkelberg1 ok but why not start with making it livable for people first?
@@puppy777 Probably because of the cost. If you invest over a billion, you want some spectacular output.
@@puppy777 that the point
Actually they had a set of land set aside just for food and agriculture. If i remember right they used both soil and aquaponics. The problems were the insects that snuck in and the ones that grew out of control destroyed some of the food also the atmospheric problems also caused growth problems. I seem to also remember a fungal or some kind of blight that killed some of the food crops. The agriculture area did focus on high yield plants but i think it was a nutrient balance problem too as not all the right kinds of food crops were grown (thus the need for vitamins).
They were actually trying to replicate the biomes of the earth to make a more natural habitat and to study how they worked with each other.
TLDR: They were running out of oxygen, there was too much CO2, the water got polluted, and they couldn't produce enough food
And no wind
The only thing that pissed me of was the need to maintain "useless" plants instead of useful high yielding crops. They should have focused more on survivability than analysing a sealed ecosystem. Mainly because to be able to do this you would have to build a dome as big as the one in The Truman Show to get more meaningful data in that regard.
First document about Bioshpere 2 to explain the whole thing in short time. Thank you.
And we are going to Mars this decade.
Sounds like they could have really used the help of Pauly Shore...
I loved and recommend the 90s documentary called "Bio-Dome" very entertaining and gives great insight into what it was really like inside.
It didn't have to be a failure. It could have been a learning experience. Clearly we weren't ready then, but the failures of Biosphere could save lives in the future. Too bad private money decided not to share the data. This is why governments need to fund these types of projects.
Great background great voice of man
Great effort on video
I am happy :)
Farts in my space suit make the journey to Mars seem much longer? Are we there yet? NO. .LOL.