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!"

Comments

Re:Wha?

[gaminRey]

because of NASA releasing plans to have a manned mission to mars by 2010. The original purpose was to learn to live in an independant enviornment, ie. living completly off what could be carried from earth to where ever.

Urban geek myth...

[Eneff]

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.

Re:Urban geek myth...

[perfessor multigeek]

As for the original purpose, the folks running the place now may be eager to suck it up to the "respectable" science establishment, but that is the only reason to deny the original intent of (admittedly, among other things) learning how to build a self-sustaining system.
The place was built in large part at the detailed instruction of a bunch of cultists not far above the Raelians on the rationality or honesty scale and these days Columbia, NASA, et al are eager to deny/downplay the origins of the place. Not to mention those aspects of the original plan that they consider "not real science"
As for ongoing work, well, yeah, "due to a lack of funding". Duh. Check the Biosphere site and you'll see that quite a lot more was going on quite recently. Something like fifteen colleges/univ/institutes had ongoing projects as of less then a year ago.
Personally, I think that part of this is a last-ditch attempt to get more money out of Bass and the local government. But mostly, I think it's a case of both genuine issues of less money at Columbia (though, funny, as somebody living within walking distance of their campus, I can say that they certainly *seem* to have plenty of money for things like construction when they *feel* like it) and a desire to wash their hands of something that clashes with the conservative, narrow-minded approach to research that has always hampered so much of academia. (Not that I have any personal bitterness about this at all, with almost everybody on both sides of my family in my parent's generation having gotten science PhDs, been disillusioned and seen enough academic bull sh*t to ensure that none of us in my generation (me and siblings/cousins) have chosen to continue that particular "family business".)
Face it folks, the first continuing program to research and be willing to publish about lunar/other planet colony engineering was done by a local chapter (Portland, OR) of L5 not because they were so stunningly brilliant (thought they were certainly very cool, smart, and dedicated) but because anybody in "legitimate" academia who publishes about such stuff takes their slim chances of tenure anywhere and chucks 'em out the door.
Look at what has happened to the Bass program at Yale. They took his twenty million, promised to back it up and tie it into their academic community, and are now waffling around trying to find excuses to keep the money but route around the mandate that came with it.
The short form: it's up to us DIY'ers. Good thing that techies make so much money. (or, in some cases, used to.)

Rustin

Pick One: War or Science

[ivi]

'looks like they're picking War this year... ;-(

They want funding

[20_ooodbye]

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

Re:They want funding

[perfessor multigeek]

The losing team could then vote one guy out of the biosphere.
I dunno. From what I've read about life in BS II when it's being run as a pseudo-closed system (constant stench, ever-less healthy and varied environment and diet, roaches and other bugs crawling on *everything*, clothes that never get truly clean, cohabitants who get more annoying all the time, petty regulations, constant noise, etc.), I'ld think that the losers would be voted to *stay in* the environment.

But then again, now that I look back at what I just wrote, the same description applies to most college dorms and I think that plenty of us would go back to that again if we had the excuse.
That's it! BioSphere Frat House! Replace half the plants with palm trees, mango trees, etc., get a bunch of random frat boys from next year's Spring Break crowd to sign up (while drunk, of course), stock the place with beer, porn, and only one bathroom. Tell 'em that they have to catch and roast suckling pigs for their protein, give them two outfits each while having an endless succession of sorority girls and swimsuit models hanging out and working right on the other side of the wall and lock 'em in.
See ya in a year, boys.
I hereby nominate the brothers of Zeta Beta Tau. Heh, heh, heh.

Rustin

not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:not surprising

[MillionthMonkey]

I met an engineering consultant for the original Biosphere Project a few months ago. He had a rather low opinion of the entire venture.

One of his stories was about how they didn't do a good job of taking care of the beehives in the dome somehow. As a result the bees died (i.e. went "extinct"). In order to maintain their food supply, the people living in the dome ended up having to run around like mad doing hand pollination of thousands of little flowers! Ouch!

Results from the original experiment

[Teancum]

If you want to see some interesting results from the original experiment, there is a PBS TV episode that covered it in detail.

Look at:

http://www.pbs.org/opb/intimatestrangers/biosphe re /

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.

Man does this bring back memories...

[j-jahnke]

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,