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I took a tour of Biosphere 2 when I was young. I remember the guide talking about two specific problems they didn't anticipate that dramatically altered the out
by pram 8y ago
I took a tour of Biosphere 2 when I was young. I remember the guide talking about two specific problems they didn't anticipate that dramatically altered the outcome of the experiment:
The 'domes' are supported by a metal lattice framework. That structure actually blocked too much sun and created extra shade which affected the plant growth.
The concrete used in the construction was sucking up carbon dioxide and changing the environment unexpectedly. That also reduced plant growth.
I really don't believe the entire thing was useless. It wasn't successful, but it failed in many interesting ways ;P
- jedberg 8y agoMy favorite failure mode was that the trees started to fall over under their own weight when they got too tall, because there was no wind inside the dome. As they learned, wind is essential for trees because they must grow stronger trunks in reaction to the wind, and the wind helps blow off parts of the tree that aren't strong enough.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y agoInteresting that this needed re-learning. Anyone who has grown seedlings indoors observes similar.
- hvs 8y agoThat's explicitly why you remove supports for new trees fairly early on in the planting process. If they indeed just learned that upon this experiment, they probably needed better horticulturists.
- stcredzero 8y agoSomething like this happens with trees in Houston. Because water can only readily penetrate the ground in the strip of soil between the road and sidewalk, their roots only grow in the strip of soil, and only have strength in the same direction as the street. So when a hurricane comes along, they tend to fall either straight out over the street, or straight back towards the house.
- maxxxxx 8y agoThis just shows that we have to do a lot of tedious testing before there is a chance to go to Mars. Even pretty innocent looking things can cause huge problems that can’t be anticipated beforehand
- jasonwatkinspdx 8y agoI always get downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, but the Elon Musk hype squad is just not being realistic about how far we are from establishing a permanent colony on mars. Severe issues remain.
- gryfft 8y agoA Mars colony is something humanity should start thinking seriously about once we successfully run a production-grade lunar colony for about a decade-- long enough to recognize and tackle the worst bugs.
- maxxxxx 8y agoTrue. On moon you still have a chance to quickly send some new parts which you can’t do on mars.
- aetherson 8y agoQuicker, sure. Though not particularly cheaper. And the moon has a bunch of problems that Mars doesn't, like 14 day nights. The moon's advantages are probably seem intuitively somewhat larger than they actually are.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoHeck how about a colony on top of Mt Everest? Its actually more congenial there, than on Mars. And a hell of a lot closer.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
- kev009 8y agoI toured it when I was young as well. I remember being enamored with the bunch of Sun workstations they had.
- amelius 8y ago> The concrete used in the construction was sucking up carbon dioxide This is the first time I hear about concrete sucking up CO2. Usually it's the other way around.