Science and Education in Biodomes

Guinnessy writes: "Many of you will remember the excitement around biosphere 2, a project to enclose 8 people in a sealed environment to see if they could survive a year on just the resources produced inside the dome. It failed (although they did discover some interesting data from it). Now, in the UK, a bunch of scientists, engineers and environments have created the Eden Project, a similar scheme (e.g. closed environments mimicking various climate conditions around the world) to biosphere 2 except the general public can walk through the domes to learn about the importance of plant life. Wired News magazine has an excellent article explaining some of the technology used in its construction (it amazed me how far they have come compared to the biosphere 2 design) and how it is educating the public." Hey, according to Mission to Mars all you need is some flapping canvas to keep your habitat secure.

Comments

biosphere problems

[Lumpy]

They made a good try at it, and if they ever activate this eden project it would be nice to see if their's works. But biosphere was doomed from the start and many many scientists were saying so from the beginning. They were lacking a correct sized human waste processing system, the amount of fauna was way too low, and trying to create ALL ecosuystems was plain stupid. Pick a easy to care for system and use that. using all high growth rate plants and high nutn plants is the best route plus you need to take account for the fact that plants will consume Oxygen in the night phase.

Even when Biosphere was being built it didnt seem that they were even trying to build it right and that it was more of a publicity stunt instead of a real research project.

"sealed"

[mirko]

Does that mean the environment was closed after an initial air-supply in order to let its contents re-generate its required oxygen itself ?
If this were the case this would be quite exciting as by just carrying this "life-bubble" on other world we could settle there with the minimum needed.

Very close to me!

[Pete (big-pete)]

Ahh, the Eden project is about 1 mile from where I grew up in Cornwall, and where my parents still live. It is an awesome project for the millennium and it was great to see it being built. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to go back there since it was completed.

One great thing about the project, is the interest and tourism that it's bringing to the local area - Cornwall has always been a beautiful place for people to visit, but now there's another reason to go as well.

This is an excellent use of one of the open-cast pits left over from the china clay mines that are scattered around that region of Cornwall, taking what was an eyesore and turning it into a thing of beauty. The Eden project is everything the Dome should have been in London.

If ever you're in the area, make a special effort to go and visit the project - it's really something special that you can't see anywhere else - not really anything like the Biosphere2 project - they're entirely different things, with entirely different objectives, on entirely different continents!

-- Pete.