On September 26, 1991, Jane Poynter and seven others embarked on a 2-year experiment in Biosphere 2, a three-acre, sealed environment in the Arizona desert designed to model the complex interactions involved in a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Like Earth — the original biosphere — Biosphere 2 was a materially closed system, dependent upon external systems only for energy. Everything else needed to support life — food, water, oxygen — were supplied by the environment in which the human inhabitants were integral players.

The two years that Poynter and her fellow “biospherians” lived in Biosphere 2 were not without problems. In the first year, hunger became an issue and inhabitants lost weight even as many health indicators (blood cholesterol, blood pressure, autoimmunity) showed improvement. In the second year, much of the weight loss was regained, as food production increased and their metabolisms adapted to their diets.

More critically, oxygen levels dropped and CO2 levels rose, leading to oxygen deprivation. Interpersonal struggles emerged, splitting the group into factions that at times threatened the mission, and mismanagement eventually closed the facility far short of its expected lifetime. Some critics claimed the project was less driven by science than by a quasi-religious philosophy, while others derided it as a theatrical art installation.

As Brandon Keim noted in Wired Science, “In most people’s minds, Biosphere 2 was a fabulously expensive failure, a $200 million earth-in-a-bottle that choked on carbon dioxide and was overrun by ants. But not everybody feels that way.”

Indeed, many of science’s greatest discoveries have been borne of lessons learned during experiments that fell short of success. Despite its pitfalls, Biosphere 2 advanced our understanding of closed-system atmospherics, agriculture, wetlands, the carbon cycle, waste treatment and more, leading to hundreds of published papers.

Some of the knowledge gained has since found application in the larger biosphere; other lessons will most certainly impact efforts to build self-sustaining environments if we are ever to embark on long-term habitation of the moon or Mars.

In this week’s Friday Night Movie, Jayne Poynter gives us an inside glimpse of life in Biosphere 2 as well as how lessons learned can be leveraged to better manage the larger biosphere that is planet Earth.

Jane Poynter: Life in Biosphere 2