As I remember Biosphere 2 from it being a news story in the early 90's and I've read some stories concerning all its foibles, the documentary Spaceship Earth (it's what Buckminster Fuller called a geodesic dome; both these folks and Walt Disney World took inspiration for that idea) was something I was interested in. As I never took a deep dive into the topic-only after the screening did I read its Wikipedia article-the background of this idea was of high interest to me.
Turns out, the people who created Biosphere 2 (1 is the planet Earth; it is an enclosed self-sufficient environment) were major hippies since the late 60's, led by a chap named John Allen. The first half hour presents a history of this group-some say it's a cult-and that includes a New Mexico commune that is exactly like the one seen in Easy Rider. Someone had a 16mm camera so it was neat seeing that vintage footage. While they do bizarre theater that isn't for me, at least they did various projects around the world, such as building a hotel in Kathmandu. They brought together some bright minds to create 2 in Arizona and 8 eccentric people went in for two years, totally sequestered in there... except for when one of the ladies had to briefly leave for finger surgery. The idea was to create such environments on space ships way in the future for when the Earth goes to hell and people have to leave it. Silent Running was in fact noted as an inspiration.
This was not a total puff piece (although you do see some clips from a vintage puff piece concerning Biosphere 2 that starred... Rue McClanahan!) and was fair in presenting some negative opinions concerning the experiment-many negative opinions are still surrounding the project-Allen's increasing hostility towards the press, the environment's rising CO2, tension among the eight Biospherians-yes, that's what they were called-and all the problems with the lesser-known second experiment in 1994 which resulted in it being taken over by... Steve Bannon. Yes, the person who is not just controversial for his time in the Trump administration.
Spaceship Earth does not rise above being fine, although at least the story was presented in a satisfactory manner and it was interesting to see all that footage from the experiment, along with some of the participants' interviews. Of course Biosphere 2's Wikipedia article offers more information but at least the commentary & footage in the documentary was nice to see/hear... the subjects were not demonized or ridiculed either. Whatever data was gathered from these experiments, hopefully some use can be made of it in more scientifically respected modern simulations... especially in 2020, the planet & its citizens aren't doing so well and who knows about humanity's fate far off (?) in the future.
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