First Day at the Biosphere

    I'm having such a great evening! After taking a tour of the Biosphere, I made a dinner of cannellini beans and spinach while blasting my Fleetwood Mac and Journey stations on Pandora. At least for tonight, I can "sing like no one is listening and dance like no one is watching". For just tonight, I have this casita all to myself. By Sunday night, we will have 7 girls in here! It'll be like a sorority house (hopefully just the fun parts of it) The rooms are set up to house two sets of two and one set of three and we'll be sharing 3 bathrooms.

     The flights were very fast and comfortable and it's nice to think of sleeping in tomorrow morning after waking up at 4am to leave from Uncle Ed and Aunt Sue's.

Nice Views from the plane

 

    Once I arrived in Tuscon, I picked up my suitcase, and an Arizona Stagecoach was ready to take me to Safeway and then the Biosphere 2 (Supposedly, it's called Biosphere 2 because our Planet Earth is Biosphere (1)). My professor was really gracious-scheduled and paid for the shuttle. After picking up some essentials at the grocery store, we made the 20 mile ride up to the Biosphere. It was exciting to see 10+ feet cacti and the desert grasses and shrubs. No one here has a lawn-water is too precious to spend on watering a picky green lawn.

The only lawns can be found at the golf courses. The scenery is much different and it definitely feels like the desert it is. My driver was telling me Tuscon is quite the destination for warm-weather seekers, drug-addicted movie stars, and spa-goers.

     My driver was fun to talk to and very personable. He let me know of a mysterious mine-no one knows what is being mined there. Security guards patrol the border of the mine 24/7 so something must be going on. The land belongs to an individual instead of the expected,well-known mining company. Many suspect that he's mining for gold. Who knows? But a little mystery is nice!

 With my exactly 50lb suitcase, three-filled grocery bags, backpack, purse and pillow, I waddled over to the check-in area. The building manager, Val Kelly, greeted me and showed me to my new casita. It's just what I imagined-the typical Arizona style-a clay textured wall covered in an orange-red color topped off with a flat roof and a small porch in the front supported by wood beams.The living room is very spacious and a bar connects the kitchen to the living area. We have 2 fridges to fit the insatiable appetites of 7 college girls!

After unpacking, I changed into some comfortable warm-weather clothes, donned a visor and sunglasses, and covered myself in sunscreen in preparation for the invading Arizona sun. After leaving the area of casitas, the enormous Biosphere 2 showed itself-a huge structure of impact-resistant glass and white beams.


     I started a tour at 3:15. Starting at the tropical orchard, we were surrounded by banana, grapefruit and fig trees and the occasional coffee plant. Next, we climbed the stairs to the rainforest area. Almost looked like Granny and Papa's yard. It had the same climbing plants that have made it to the top of Papa's largest palm trees.

 After the rainforest, we walked through the mangrove area and the ocean. I couldn't get a good picture of the ocean, but it is ~100 feet long and about 40 feet wide and 25 feet deep. I could see some corals but no bright colors. When it was first started, they scientists had ocean water shipped from the Pacific Ocean and then freshwater was added. When the addition of fresh water, the water then had to be treated to reach an ocean's proper salinity and pH. It doesn't seem the University of Arizona is doing much research at this "ocean" but instead, keep it around for possible future research and a tourist attraction.

 The Biosphere 2 had a neat start. The structure was built in the early 1990s as a private venture of one individual. Then scientists moved in the Biosphere 2 for two years straight! They greenhouse-like building was sealed tight and the scientists ate the food that was grown in the Biosphere-completely self-sustaining in the structure. Since the building is air-tight, engineers had to come up with a creative way to balance the changes in air pressure. During the day, the air expands from the heat of the sun and with expanding air, the structure could burst. The opposite happens at night-the air compresses and the building could cave in on itself. So the engineers developed a "lung" for the building. A small tunnel connects the main structure to a round, sealed, very large room (almost looks like a settling tank used to hold waste-water) that has a flexible rubber roof. As the air pressure changes, the air can either escape from or enter this chamber. For example-during the hottest part of the day, the expanding air travels down the tunnel, moves in the chambers, and raises the flexible rubber top. At night, air from this room moves into the biosphere. Pretty neat design!

So anyways, the scientists accomplished their goal of surviving in the Biosphere 2 for 2 years-supposedly, it was meant to demonstrate the ability of man to survive on a foreign planet if we had a structure like the Biosphere 2 (Today, the focus is far from that). After the scientists left, Columbia University took it over for about 8 years, but it ended up becoming too costly to maintain. Then the University of Arizona became the manager of the property-the university doesn't own it. Today, the main purpose of the Biosphere 2 is to focus on water conservation by observing how water is used in the system. Outside the structure, they are experimenting on a bunch of solar panel types and green roof plants in test plots-my project!