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Biosphere II funding and research cut back
perfessor multigeek writes "Columbia U. is starting to pull out of Biosphere II. According to the New York Times (reg req. blah, blah) Columbia, under a new, more "pragmatic" leadership, disappointed with the science coming out, and short of cash with the stock market drop, is starting to pull funding and academic programs from Biosphere. Funny, none of the current articles even mention the original purpose, just this past week made more crucial, of preparing for building a synthetic biome in space or on Mars. Arrgh!"
I'm sorry -- maybe I missed something -- but WHY was the original purpose "made more crucial this week?"
Did Pauly Shore screw things up again?
I just happened to be out at Biosphere 2 last a week and a half ago...
On the tour, the guide was Emphatic about the original intent of the Biosphere being to observe the effects of the system, denying that it was ever to even be self-sufficient (a misnomer, as is a closed system... the rationale is that the Earth isn't a closed system, so why should this be?)
So, according to the official PR, Other planets were never a goal.
As for the science that's going on right now, they're studying the effects of various levels of carbon dioxide on photosynthesis right now... there are only 3 other experiments going on due to a lack of funding.
The science might be more valuable in finding out what's going to happen (if/as) global warming starts.
'looks like they're picking War this year...
They should make the inhabitants of the biosphere split into teams an complete a number of tricky challenges. The losing team could then vote one guy out of the biosphere Then all they would have to do is sell the TV rights
I visited Biospehere a good 8 years ago, and the place was a joke. Supposedly they were thinking it was still a "closed" system, yet there I saw a line of ants, 1/2 inside and 1/2 outside the 'sphere.
My guess is that the Bio-Dome movie was made by people that visited the real thing in the early 1990's.
In this time of being accountable for the money that you spend...
Hell, yes, there was tons of sloppy thinking and distorted claims when the original crew of sleazy whackos was running the joint.
.
Try to move past that.
Think of BSII as being like the performance car built for a drug dealer, captured, and sold off by the police. Do you then only use it to drive around at 30MPH because the original intent was sleazy/foolish or do you say, "I'm so lucky to have gotten this wonderful hunk of machinery and without having had to pay the outrageous cost of building it"?
Okay, so it has a sordid past. Bummer. Hallmark f*cking cards started out as mail fraud. 3M started out as a combination stock swindle/dud mining company. It's well past time to move the hell on from origins, start removing/replacing the more egregiously bad structural aspects, and find a productive use for what is still an astounding collection of resources.
Goddamned small-brained, opinion-driven, half-assed . . .
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
If you want to see some interesting results from the original experiment, there is a PBS TV episode that covered it in detail.
e re /
Look at:
http://www.pbs.org/opb/intimatestrangers/biosph
for the program information.
I saw this several months ago, and it was rather interesting some of the problems they encountered as well as some of the more interesting conclusions that they came up with. They tried to keep it a closed system and ran into many problems including problems with the coral reef and unhealthy CO2 levels.
Some of the scientific research done there litterally can't be done anywhere else (unless you built a similar facility). It is too bad that more money isn't being spent on pure science research like this.
I don't know the administration side of things for this project, however, and sometimes project like this tend to chew up lots of money on overhead/administrative costs, especially if they are managed by somebody who is not a particularly good adinistrator (as in a scientist promoted through the Peter Principle) or some MBA type who doesn't know anything about the research they are doing.
Government grants toward pure research are also drying up.... which is why something like the Mars mission would be particularly interesting.
perfessor multigeek, please used Google newsed links instead of links that require registration.
I just had a thought. Didn't Columbia have a building/program at the Canberra astronomy facility?
I wonder if their possible sudden need to spend time and money on that has any effect on their available budget for BS II.
Just wondering,
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
By now it may be leaky, but it was airtight when it was built. Did you see the "lung" building with the roof that goes up and down to allow for expansion as the inside air warms and expands during the day, then cools and contracts at night?
I remember in the 3rd Grade, the biosphere team came to my class and did a presentation. It got me interested in science at a very early age and since then i've got my masters in chemistry and now work for a biotech company.
Its sad to see how people have made fun of this project and called it worthless, since it has so much potential. The science being done there is vastly contributing to our knowledge of keeping environments alive and running in contained environments. There are many interactions we have learned about in there that weve overlooked in our own environment!
I guess this is just another example of a great idea that contributed massively to humanity, but probably wont get any respect untill generations of people come and go and rediscover how important it really was.
When I finished school I moved to Arizona in '87 or so to be near my sweetie (who is still my sweetie.) I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life so I got a temp job digging ditches for the U of A's Environmental Research Lab (ERL) which was out by the Tucson International Airport. If you ever dug a ditch in Arizona you can appreciate what a sucky job this was, the calcified sediment is something to behold, but I was never in better shape in my life.
Anyway, the job was pretty mindless and it gave me plenty of time to consider what I wanted to do with my life. When one day my boss told me to get in the van he had a job for me, in previous times this meant a trip to the chancellors house to dig ditches for him. So I got in the van and we drove up to Oracle where they were building the BioSphere II. Man was it cool, but it was my lot in life to dig a bunch of ditches for communcations lines and power lines and such. I was there a few days. I only dug ditches for a few months or so.
I decided that computers might be a good place to direct my energies I got a job in an R & D group. But I do think back on my time with a shovel when ever I look at my somewhat rotund figure. Although all the pictures my wife has of me during that time are of me sleeping in my chair. I was tired a lot.
I did get to do some more work for them later while at the University of Arizona in the Molecular & Cellular Biology Department. It was while the goofballs were still in charge. I was really disappointed to learn how nutty those guys were, but I guess I should have expected it. I was very happy when Columbia stepped up when it all fell apart but I was disappointed they never really did much with it.
Jer,
Of course funding is being cut. They never should have let Pauly Shore into the first one to begin with.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!