I recently had the opportunity to visit Biosphere2, the famous/infamous futurist biology experiment from the early 1990's. The early scenarios where a crew lived inside the airtight system got a lot of bad press, mainly due to what seemed to be bad planning. Insufficiently cured concrete and highly enriched soils consumed oxygen at an alarming rate, while the cloudy el Nino year reduced the amount of photosynthesis inside. I had heard at the time that the members of the space frame supporting the glass were obscuring more sunlight than they allowed for. The oxygen partial pressure was equivalent to that at about 14,000 feet before some outside air was pumped in. If all this happened now, it would still be running as a reality television show.
All that is past and now the facility is now a University of Arizona research center for students and visiting scientists. I took a guided tour while visiting Tuscon. It's really a blast to walk around and see the different climate regions - check out the album below.
Link to their website:
http://www.b2science.org/index.html
