We hit the road to Tucson – we started off driving through
grassy plains, curiously with no cattle to be seen despite the lush tall grass.
We also passed through some small towns that had
obviously fallen on hard times, lots of boarded up windows and abandoned
houses.
Once we were down the range the scenery changed to cactuses.
We saw 4 types – mostly the tall ones with arms that look like people, but also
barrel shaped, ones with flat oval leaves and a kind of hairy and spiny bushy
one. Cactuses everywhere, as far as we could see.
We took a short detour to visit Biosphere 2. Built in the
late 1980s with $150 million in funding from Texas oil magnate Edward Bass,
Biosphere 2 is an airtight replica of Earth's environment (Biosphere 1). Appearing like a giant greenhouse, Biosphere 2
contains 5 habitats; an ocean, rainforest, desert, plains and research space.
Originally, Biosphere was designed to explore the
possibility of human habitation of a closed system, with obvious applications
to moon and mars living. Two groups of people each spent 2 years living inside
Biosphere, but there were issues that eventually suspended the experiments.
Biosphere 2, is now owned and management by The University
of Arizona, and is one of the world's most unique facilities dedicated to the
research and understanding of global scientific issues.
We did a really interesting tour, starting in the original
living space, and through the various habitats, and then underground to see all
the machinery required to keep Biosphere running. The most interesting thing
was the buildings “lungs”. Big circular rooms, they have collapsible ceilings
that raise and lower as the air temperature increases and decreases, otherwise
the glass panels would explode or implode with the air pressure.
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