(hesitantly) Llllet's talk about that.

♪ (theme music) ♪

- Good Mythical Morning. -You don't have to be a fan of watching

Captain Planet take on eco-villians like Sly Sludge or Looten Plunder --

- yes, that was one of the guy's names: - Of course it was.

- Looten Plunder -- - Yeah-yeah-yeah.

to know that we humans don't do a very good job of taking care of our home,

the earth. So much so that people like Stephen Hawking -- you've probably heard

- of him -- has said that… - I've heard of him.

in order to survive, we're going to need to colonize other planets

at some point, because, you know, time is running short on this one. We gotta

get to other planets. And why don't we practice by going and setting up

something on Mars. Not like Mars is the future, but if you're gonna get to the

next planet, you gotta get to the first planet that you can get to. That's Mars.

NASA said, "You know what? We're gonna have a manned mission to Mars by 2035."

- And SpaceX, that's Elon Musk's… - Yeah.

company, he says, "We're gonna go there by the 2020s."

I'm not talking about the television show, guys. I'm talking about the years,

the 2020s. We're gonna go there because of the guy who makes the Tesla cars.

He can make his rocket come down...

- We're not going in the Tesla cars. - …in the same spot that it went up.

- It's in a rocket. - It goes like this: shhhhhk.

- It's pretty awesome. - (clicks tongue)

There is a problem, though. Mars is very, very, very, very, cold:

-225 degrees Fahrenheit. You don't wanna be caught out in the open in that

situation without a toboggan. Or without being in some sort of enclosed space.

Or as my family members call it, a TOE-boggan.

- A TOE-boggan. - Not to go on your toes, though.

You need a lot more than a TOE-boggan to live on Mars, and if you're a human,

you need to be enclosed in some sort of space. So people had been thinking

about this, creating some sort of biosphere, if you will...

- Yes. - …an enclosed ecosystem to help

us learn how to get ready to go to other planets. And you may remember --

I do remember this -- back in 1991, when we were in middle school, eight people

in Arizona, went into something called Biosphere 2. Here's a little refresher.

- Really. - (male voice) In 1991, eight researchers

were sealed inside a futuristic glass complex near Oracle, Arizona, to spend

two years living in a self-sustaining habitat.

(female voice) We hope by building Biosphere 2 that we build the first

prototype for total a total life system that you'd be able to take to

- another planet. - I take my last breaths of this

atmosphere, knowing that I will take breaths from a different atmosphere

- from all of you for two years. - It's very dramatic.

"I take my last breath… and my last use of hair product."

Did she use that hair product on the inside, too?

- I don't know. I liked that hair, though. - That was some bouffant hair.

- I got no problems at all with that. - I do not remember that...

- I could make that a biosphere. - nor do I -- I do not remember

- Biosphere 1, either. - Yeah, well, the reason you don't

remember Biosphere 1 -- that's what I was thinking -- is because Biosphere 1 is

- the earth. There was no Biosphere 1 - Oh.

that was an enclosed thing. They're like, "Biosphere 1 is the earth."

- I'm currently experiencing it. - So, yeah, we are in Biosphere 1

- right now, Link. It's awesome. - So Biosphere 2 is kinda like

like, a dive suit… for eight people and crops.

Exactly. And a few animals. Here's what it had. It was basically a huge greenhouse

- over three acres… - (Link) Or a greenhouse.

Big greenhouse, bigger than a suit, yeah. Greenhouse, three acres, over nine

stories tall. It had a rainforest, a desert, an ocean, a swamp...

- What? - …a savannah and a small farm that

had five goats, two pigs, and twenty-three chickens.

- Are you sure this isn't just a zoo? - No, this is Biosphere 2.

- It's a beautiful facility. - It's a zoo no one can go to.

Well, these eight people went. But the question is, why are we not all playing

- kickball on Mars now? - Are they sti… Well, or are they

- still in there? - No, they're not, because Biosphere 2

- was a huge failure. - Really.

Here's what happened. First of all, just to give you an idea of how big of a

failure it was, Time magazine says this is one of the 100 worst ideas of the

- 20th century. Biosphere 2. - Well, it doesn't sound like it.

It inspired another thing that's on my list of the 100 worst ideas of the 20th

century: the 1996 Pauly Shore film, Biodome.

- ♪ (lively orchestral score) ♪ - Just because we're stuck in a bubble,

- doesn't mean we can't cause any trouble. - (unison) On three… Three!

(yelling) (cheering)

♪ (upbeat music) ♪

- Looks like a lot of fun. - So lemme get this straight...

- "Just because we're stuck in a bubble," - …Biosphere 2.

(unison) "Doesn't mean we can't cause any trouble."

- Bungee jump! - (laughing)

Trouble with the bungee cord! So they took Biosphere 2, and it was a miserable

failure, so they just use it as a movie set?

Yeah. No, they didn't. They built their own movie set. They didn't go in the

Biosphere 2, because… and I'll tell you why.

The producers missed an opportunity with that one.

- Biosphere 2… - One was already built.

…cost 150 million dollars to build. You're like, "Who financed this?

The government?" No. A guy named Ed Bass, not edbassmaster. This was not

- him pre-YouTube career. - Ed "Base?"

This is an eccentric heir to a Texas oil fortune named Ed Bass.

And he just had a bunch of money, and he was into environmental ideas, and he

thought that this would be good one. And he also had a guy who was a really

good friend and mentor of his named John Allen, who was the designer.

It was John Allen's idea, financed by Ed Bass.

- Bass' money. - So John being involved was probably

the problem. This guy was a very weird dude, kind of a jack of all trades.

He had a background in engineering and metallurgy, working with metals.

But he was also the founder of a theater company -- a theater commune --

- What? - called Synergia Ranch.

- (laughing) Okay. - So what did he do?

So what did he do when he came up with this idea for Biosphere 2?

He just wanted to have a theater. He wanted to make his own theater.

- Where did he find the eight participants? - Actors.

(Rhett) He found them in the theater commune.

- (Link) Oh, dude. - Most of them. Most of the people

who went into Biosphere 2 were not scientists or doctors, they were theater

commune people from Synergia Ranch. And some of them hadn't even gone

- to college. - Hey, that's okay.

But it was supposed to be like a scientific endeavor. And I remember

it on the news. They were talking about this. You know, I was a kid, I didn't

- really know what the deal was. - That explains why that woman was so

- dramatic when she was giving her speech! - She's like, "I take these last breaths…"

It was a monologue!

- From the commune! - Yeah, it was very Shakespearean.

- (laughing) Yeah! - Well, anyway, that woman that

you saw, Jane Poynter, she was the root of some of the trouble.

12 days into them being sealed up into this thing, she cut off the tip of

her finger in a rice thresher. I don't know what a rice thresher is.

They probably used it in one of their plays that they put on inside

- (through laughter) of the Biosphere. - You gotta have a theater degree

to know how to use a rice thresher. (laughing)

But anyway, she had to go outside of the biosphere to get medical attention.

- Well, all they had to… - So 12 days in, BOOM, they break

- the seal! They break the seal! - Why didn't she just poke her finger out?

Well, she went out. She got medical attention, so a lot of people are like,

"Okay, this thing's ruined. She's out." And of course the news covered this,

'cause the news was, like, still hanging around. And then she went back in with

two duffel bags. And everybody was like, "Oh, she's taking in supplies!"

- (snaps) Extra fingers. - 'Cause the whole idea

- (crew laughing offscreen) - was that this was supposed to be

self-sustaining. You weren't supposed to get any help, 'cause on Mars, you ain't

gonna get help. Like, they don't even have oxygen in this thing. It's supposed

- to generate all its own atmosphere. - Right.

So opening the seal ruins everything. But she says, "Oh, there's just drawings

inside of the duffel bags," is what she said. Two duffel bags worth of

drawings, and maybe scripts for future plays, were in these duffel bags.

- (laughing) Wow. - But they didn't take off their

Deep Space 9 jumpsuits and call it quits. They continued on, and things got worse.

Too much cloud cover. It was like an El Niño year, and apparently Arizona

had more clouds than expected, so the crops really didn't grow.

- Everything got real brown in there? - Then the livestock ate up most of

the food, because, you know, pigs and goats and stuff need food. So they

kill the goats, kill the pigs, half of the chickens, and begin eating the grain

for the animals for themselves. This was a little bit of a diet. One guy who wasn't

- really that overweight lost 54 pounds. - Ouch.

This reminds me of my science project in junior high, that I got

- honorable mention. - Biosphere?

I didn't call it "Biosphere." I called it "What Is the Balance of Nature?"

and it was these different jars that had water and algae and slugs.

- And this is pretty much exactly that. - And it was sealed. And they all turned

really brown, and when you opened it up, it smelled like death in there.

Did you put eight people from a theater commune in there?

- No. (laughing) - That was where you went wrong.

Now, if all that stuff wasn't bad enough, the oxygen levels -- this place was

supposed to have a normal oxygen level, and it did at one point. It had about 21%.

But it began to drop, and it went down to 14%. You don't have to know anything

about the death zone around the top of Everest to know that when you get

into a low-oxygen environment, weird stuff starts happening. Sleep apnea:

they would wake up in the middle of the night basing for breath because they

couldn't get enough oxygen when they were sleeping. It made 'em crazy.

It made 'em into kleptomaniacs and hoarders, and they started stealing

from one another inside of the biosphere. Then Jane Poynter...

- Pointer… she lost the tip of her - Good old Jane.

- finger. I'm realizing that right now. - (laughing)

- That's nice. - She had a time travel experiment --

(laughing) experience. She hallucinated while she was in the sweet potato field.

Yes, there was one of those. And she went into a time machine. She came out on

the other side. She had a conversation with her older brother -- an argument

with him. Key note: her older brother was not actually in the biosphere,

- so it was a hallucination. - He was in the duffel bag.

So, here's what the -- her brother was in the duffel bag! That's what it

was. Here's what ended up happening. Things get so desperate, they start

pumping oxygen into the thing. They operate a CO2 scrubber, which is what

- you use on a submarine to get oxygen in, - Okay.

and get CO2 out, which is a complete violation of the whole thing!

So basically the whole thing was just kaput at that point, but they stayed

in there. They quit talking to one another.

- I don't think… - There were several of them who

wouldn't talk to one another, and then after two years, they finally come out,

put on a smiley face for the news, and just declare it a victory. But

everybody know by that time it was just a failure.

But, if they would have had cameras everywhere, and they would have

- televised it as a reality show, - Yeah.

everyone... it would've been seen as a success.

- It would have, yes. - Based on ratings.

- Which is a defunct way to measure… - Right. It was ahead of its time.

- It should've been a reality show. - …way to measure tele --

You can't measure the success of anything using ratings anymore. It's a broken

- system. Let's talk at length about that. - To end on a good note, Link,

you can go there today. Biosphere 2, it's still a thing.

- Really?! - It's owned by the University of

Arizona. Now it's just the world's largest earth science research center.

They're actually getting some pretty cool stuff there done, and you can

- take a tour! It's in Oracle, Arizona. - Is Jane still in there?

- Jane is not there. And I think that - Fingerless Jane.

two of the Biosphereans fell in love. I think Jane was one of them.

- I'm not sure exactly who that was. - Oh, if it can be done, Jane did it.

- Trust me. - They put a ring right on that finger.

- (laughing) - It was very easy to get on there,

- because… she didn't have a tip. - Didn't have as far to go.