Eight people attempted to live in a biosphere for two years and it went terribly wrong

A team of eight people built a biosphere and tried living inside it for two years.

After years of travelling around the world studying Earth's ecosystems, a team of eight people - headed up by John P Allen - took to the deserts of Arizona, US in 1987 to try and build their own.

However, little did they realise the risks that would come with trying to build and inhabit their own biosphere.

The team constructed the Earth system science research facility in Oracle, Arizona between 1987 and 1991.

It was built as a closed ecological system to mirror Earth's to test whether such systems can actually be created to work in outer space in a way which adequately supports human life - think along the lines of what Matt Damon's character has to do in The Martian, but on a larger scale.

The biosphere - named Biosphere 2 - cost between $150-200 million and was built as a three-acre glass-steel structure to contain an agricultural space - think live pigs and chickens - forests, deserts, science labs, recycling systems, and a coral reef too.

For the team of eight 'biospherians', the mission was to live inside it for two years - first sealing themselves inside in September 1991.

So, how did the two years go?

Getty Images/ Joe Sohm/Visions of America/ Universal Images Group

Well, the team did manage to last the two years, but just because it was possible doesn't mean it was an enjoyable experience by any stretch of the imagination.

First off, despite having forests, gardens, multiple animals and a coral reef, the meal choices weren't top notch.

One eighth of the time, Linda Leigh, told The Guardian many plants took a lot longer to grow and harvest than initially anticipated.

She said: "It was a challenge to make exciting meals [...] Some people made horrible things like cold potato leaf soup.

"[...] We really could have used more calories."

And the problems didn't end there either.

Neon

Biosphere 1 tried to replicate the oxygen levels found here on Earth - around 21 percent - but unfortunately it fell rather short, coming in at around 15 percent at one point, The New York Times reports.

Mark Nelson, another of the original eight biospherians, said: It felt like mountain-climbing. Some of the crew started getting sleep apnoea. I noticed I couldn’t finish a long sentence without stopping and taking a breath of air.

"We worked in a kind of slow-motion dance, with no energy wasted. If the oxygen levels had dropped any lower, there could have been serious health issues."

Eventually, extra oxygen supplies had to be brought in and food too.

Getty Images/ Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group

Oh, and according to SciHi Blog, ants and cockroaches bred like wildfire, fish started to die and the desert ended up too wet because of condensation.

The water system became polluted too, so had to be cleaned, oh and there were some falling out between the eight team members - imagine your first year of university but for two years not just one.

Despite what went wrong with the experiment and the fact they had to lean on extra supplies from the outside, Mark Nelson - another biospherian - views it as a success.

He resolves: "Just the fact that the same number of people came out as went in is a triumph.

"I like to say we built it not because we had the answers. We built it to find out what we didn’t know."