Ramblin Ways: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 BIOSPHERE 2

A much different day from yesterday greeted us when the sun came up. Winds had died down and it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Back to the VA for the second half of procedure started yesterday. As we drove south it was with reminders along the way of the long ride home last night. Two appointments today and then we were free to explore.

Biosphere 2 came to the front of my attention. I had seen the signs for it at some point as well as a brochure in the packet given to me when I arrived at Quail Run. The Biosphere is an engineering marvel and was created to research and develop self-sustaining space-colonization technology. There is 7.2 million sq ft enclosed under 6500 windows.

The biosphere is at an elevation of 4000 ft and as we drove up the pressure in our ears adjusted a couple of times. I think about the height of Mt. Washington in NH which has always seemed huge is 6288 ft, but out here you can climb to 4000 feet and still feel like you are just in the foot hills of the mountains.

The first building you see from the crest of the hill is the top of the rain forest building which is 91 ft tall and houses 100 species of plant life. It was initially planted with 300 but many of them have died out. I can tell you it is very hot and humid in there. The air was so thick with moisture that I found it very hard to breath. Was glad to move on to the other areas. They have an ocean which was created from water brought in from San Diego, CA for the first 200,000 gallons to get all of the micro organisms needed to create the true environment for fish to thrive. Then added water from surrounding wells and used the same process used in home salt water aquariums to create the proper ph for everything to thrive in.

We then found ourselves in high Savannah area, moved into low Savannah then into marsh and from there into a desert environment. The whole thing is a research project into how rainfall and water effect the surrounding conditions. The desert is created with plants from below the equator to give a reverse season for creating oxygen within the Biosphere.

Boojum Tree endemic of Baja, CA There are two of them within the Biosphere.

Technically I don't want to get into the specifics of what they have done since it's conception, but will leave you with a link to research if you'd like to read on. Biosphere 2

Many of the building have ongoing experiments relating to water and how our plants and soil use it.

We were lead through a tunnel and into one of two artificial lungs that are used to keep constant pressure in the Biosphere. As the day warms the air the molecules expand and the lung inflates when evening arrives and the air cools they contract and the lung deflates. A simple explanation for a complex process, but it is amazing to watch a huge steel platform start to descend in only 8 seconds.

During the night the huge steel plate will descend to the floor of the lung as the biosphere cools down and the air condenses. When we got ready to leave the tour guide took the time to just open the door to the outside and as the seconds ticked off the plate started to descend and as we exited the building it was like being pushed through a wind tunnel. Truly like what we can imagine it would be like inside a living lung on exhale.

Below the inside of one of the buildings looking down at an experiment having to do with water and climate change. I was on information overload at that point so didn't grasp all the details of the whole thing.