The Human Experiment Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2

by Poynter, Jane

• ISBN13: 9781560257752
• ISBN10: 156025775X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-08-18
• Publisher: BASIC BOOKS

Summary

"Imagine: four men and four women lock themselves into a three-acre greenhouse in the Arizona desert where they live for two years, completely cut off from the outside world. Nothing in or out - no food, no water, not even air. They produce everything they need to survive from their miniature rainforest, savannah, desert, marsh, ocean and farm. This was the scenario an extraordinary collection of personalities tried to make reality." "Scientists said it was impossible. Countless reports called it a fraud. But Time put the project on its list of Best Science, and its breakthroughs in understanding the global climate crisis are more significant and relevant than ever." "Now, for the first time, one of those original crewmembers tells the extraordinary tale of Biosphere 2. Jane Poynter, who helped develop the project, lived, and loved in it - and ultimately walked away from it - at last shares the reality of what life was like inside a glass cage."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

JANE POYNTER is an adventurer whose participation in Biosphere 2 involved training in survival techniques in the Australian outback and sailing a ferro-cement boat in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. She was the only member of the Biosphere crew to be fired three times (and reinstated three times). While inside, she and her husband-to-be, fellow crew member Taber McCallum, not only arranged to have a house built for themselves, but began a space technology firm, Paragon Space Development Corporation. She has designed and built experiments that have ridden in the International Space Station and had three more on the ill-fated Columbia mission. In addition to writing this book, she and Paragon are developing life support systems for the space shuttle and for Navy deep-sea divers. In addition, she is working on an innovative project to feed the hungry in the poorest nations while sequestering carbon. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and enjoys motorcycle racing for weekend relaxation.

Jane appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a member of the Biosphere 2 crew, and has appeared on many television shows, magazine and newspaper articles about the project and her work in space and the environment.

JAKE PAGE is a science editor and writer, novelist, and essayist who has collaborated with scientists and others on thirty books of non-fiction, most recently THE BIG ONE (Houghton-Mifflin) with geologist Charles Officer and, before that, THE FIRST AMERICANS (Random House) with archaeologist James M. Adovasio. He was editor of Natural History and science editor of Smithsonian. He lives in Lyons, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Oxygen dilemma	p. 1
A ratified atmosphere	p. 7
Ecopreneur	p. 21
Sea change	p. 27
Extreme training	p. 45
Building a new world	p. 61
Vertebrate X, Y, and Z	p. 85
The tallest nail gets hammered down	p. 99
Closure	p. 111
What honeymoon?	p. 133
The long dark winter	p. 149
Cabin fever	p. 167
It takes four months to make a pizza	p. 179
Gold or lead	p. 195
Lines drawn in desert sand	p. 201
Starving, suffocating, and going quite mad	p. 225
I dreamed of wild horses	p. 253
Dysfunctional family	p. 261
Window-shopping	p. 269
Are we there yet?	p. 295
Reentry	p. 313
Thirty-seven brands of ketchup	p. 319
April fools	p. 323
And now what?	p. 331
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.