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Why Some Projects Succeed and Others Fail Video

Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. It was originally constructed between andand has been owned by the University of Arizona since Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe. It remains the largest closed system ever created. Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space [4] as a substitute for Earth's biosphere. It was designed to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes.

In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there was an agricultural area and work space to study the interactions between humans, farming, technology and the rest of nature as a new kind of laboratory for the study of the global ecology. Its mission was a two-year closure experiment with a crew of eight humans "biospherians". As an experimental ecological facility it allowed the study and manipulation of a mini biospheric system without harming Earth's biosphere. Below ground was an extensive part of the technical infrastructure.

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Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center. Biosphere 2 was only used twice for are Diversity in Education advise original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from toand the second time from March to September Both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animals and plants included in the experiment though this was anticipated since the project used a strategy of deliberately "species-packing" anticipating losses as the biomes developedgroup dynamic Wht among the resident crew, outside politics and a power struggle over management and direction of the project.

Nevertheless, the closure experiments set world records in closed ecological systems, Soem production, health improvements with the high nutrient and low caloric diet the crew followed, and insights into the self-organization of complex biomic systems and atmospheric dynamics. In June FFail, during the middle of the second experiment, the managing company, Space Biosphere Ventures, was dissolved, and the facility was left in limbo. Columbia University assumed management of the facility in and used it to run experiments until Why Some Projects Succeed and Others Fail It then looked in danger of being demolished to make way for housing and retail stores, but was taken over for research by the University of Arizona in The University of Arizona took full ownership of the structure in The Biosphere 2 project was launched in by businessman and philanthropist Ed Bass and systems ecologist John P. Construction was carried out between and by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P.

Dempster, director of system engineering, and Norberto Alvarez-Romo, vice president of mission control. It was Why Some Projects Succeed and Others Fail "Biosphere 2" because it was meant to be the second fully self-sufficient biosphereafter the Earth itself "Biosphere 1".

The glass and spaceframe facility is located in Oracle, Arizona at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountainsabout 50 minutes north of Tucson. The above-ground physical structure of Biosphere 2 was made of steel tubing and high-performance glass and steel frames. The frame and glazing materials were designed and made to specification by a firm run by a one-time associate of Buckminster FullerPeter Jon Pearce Pearce Structures, Inc. During the day, the heat from the sun caused the air inside to expand and during the night it cooled and contracted.

To avoid having to deal with the huge forces that maintaining a constant volume would create, the structure had large diaphragms kept in domes called "lungs" read more variable volume structures. Since opening a window was not an option, the structure also required a sophisticated system to regulate temperatures within desired parameters, which varied for the different biomic areas. Though cooling was the largest energy need, heating had to be supplied in the winter and closed loop pipes and air handlers were key parts of the energy system. An energy center on site provided electricity and heated and cooled water, employing natural gas and backup generators, Fil chillers and water cooling towers.

The first closed mission lasted from September 26, to September 26, Calculations indicated that Biosphere 2's farm was amongst the highest producing in the world "exceeding by more than five times that of the most efficient agrarian communities of Indonesia, southern China, and Projectz. They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet that Roy Walford had studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet.]