The Big Flop - Biosphere 2: Out of Oxygen with Alie Ward and Josh Gondelman | 32

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Imagine sealing yourself in giant, glass, self-contained ecosystem with your boyfriend and a lady who's learning to play saxophone... for TWO YEARS. In 1991, eight semi-qualified volunteers entered Biosphere 2, and promised that they would live inside the giant science experiment without any help from the outside. However, thanks to chopped off fingers, oxygen-gulping bacteria, rampant cockroaches and Steve Bannon, Biosphere 2 would become one of the biggest scientific flops in history.Alie Ward (In the Wild, Oologies) and Josh Gondelman (Last Week Tonight, Modern Seinfeld) join Misha for this failed science experiment gone too far.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Imagine this. You've been handpicked to be one of eight people sealed inside Biosphere 2, a massive, self-sustaining indoor research center, and you have one goal. Figure out how to colonize Mars. Oh, and you can't leave. For two years.

You're in the garden picking sweet potato greens to feed the goats you take care of. You avoid the moldy ones. Sometimes you eat one. YOLO. You contemplate your life's journey. How you ended up here. You didn't go to college, but now the man running this experiment whose name is, and I kid you not, Johnny Dolphin. He says, you're an expert agriculturist. That's fun, I guess. But life inside the biosphere hasn't been fun. You've already had an accident that required surgery.

Your boyfriend can't stop playing the conga drums out of boredom. The pounding is stuck in your head and you can't get rid of it. Also, you might be dying. The air feels thin. You can't finish a sentence without gasping. Suddenly your stomach cramps and you feel a bit untethered. A portal opens up. You walk through it and travel through time. You have an argument with your brother. And then you travel back to the Sweet Potato Garden.

The worst part is that Biosphere 2, this $150 million terrarium in the middle of the Arizona desert, is one day supposed to be humanity's Martian salvation. And you're not even sure you'll survive two years here. Life couldn't possibly get any worse. Wait a minute, are you hallucinating still, or is that Steve Bannon? What we are working with in Biosphere 2 is to develop the basics of a long-term ecological life support system based somewhere off of this planet. While their home video shows them feasting, the truth is the biospherians have had trouble growing enough food to sustain

themselves. When your oxygen is going down, stopped working essentially in your life support system, that's a very bad failure. From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and theater cult survivor at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today, we're talking about Biosphere 2, the disastrous sequel to Biosphere 1, aka Planet Earth. The The The

The The The The The The The and civil servants lies an invisible state filled with secret operatives playing to very different rules. From Wondery, I'm Indra Varma and this is The Spy Who. This month we open the file on Noor Anayat Khan, the spy who wouldn't lie.

When Germany invades France, Noor and her family are forced to flee to Britain. But Noor decides she can't just sit out the war, so she accepts one of the most dangerous spy missions of World War II, a job that will put her deep into enemy territory. Follow The Spy Who now wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Wouldn't Lie early and ad free with Wondery Plus. Looking for inspiration? Craving something new?

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A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. Start your free trial at audible.ca. On our show today, we have a comedian and writer you might recognize him from his stand-up special, People Pleaser, or as a frequent panelist on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, it's Josh Gondelman. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so delighted to be here. I love talking about failure and I'm relieved that today it's someone else's.

I love that. Also on the show, we have a writer and science correspondent. She's been a huge advocate for science communication on her podcast, Ologies, covering all of your science questions. It's Ali Ward. Hello. Oh, hey, I too am excited to talk about a smaller scale failure than just Earth. It's nice to have a literal microcosm. Well, the story of Biosphere 2 begins with an eccentric geologist and entrepreneur because of course it does.

In the early 1960s, engineer John Allen acquires mining rights to billions of dollars worth of coal. But John realizes that mining will violate indigenous sacred sites and destroy the environment. So he abandons mining and devotes himself to ecology. So what do we think about this guy so far? What a twist. Yeah, I know. This guy did a whole 180.

This is like when someone in the mob turns state's evidence. It's nice that someone told him, you know, that you could choose your path here. You could tear up the earth or you could care about it. So that's good. I wonder if he was visited in a dream by like the ghost of his future or something. The ghost of global temperature future. Yeah. Well, John spends some time trying to find himself and the place to be in the 1960s is

San Francisco. There he starts the theater of All Possibilities, where he and his friends can hang out and be anti-commercial idealists. He even adopts the very peculiar stage name, Johnny Dolphin. This is such a twist from being a coal baron. Because it was one thing when he went, oh, coal baron, you know what, I get to save

the environment. But straight up, Colbaran to performance art is a pipeline that I didn't know existed. Oh, yeah. I mean, as Johnny Dolphin, John writes poetry, prose, and stage plays about a coming nuclear apocalypse, as you do. And in 1969, John buys some land just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and names it Synergia Ranch. Oh. Mm-hmm. That does sound like where Johnny Dolphin would live.

Yeah, it sure does. A few of John's friends follow him from San Fran. Unsurprisingly, the residents of Synergia Ranch seem very peculiar and possibly even cult-like. Although, caveat, they aren't actively recruiting new members. And like their leader, Johnny Dolphin, they use nicknames like Sharky, Flash, Salty, Hoolahan, Hollerat, and Horseshit. Mm. This is very marine. I'm seeing a lot of marine themes for a desert oasis, but that's fine. What would your synergy ranch nickname be?

Mine would be Leather Cantaloupe, and it would be after an armadillo. Like that? You know how an armadillo just turns into a cantaloupe made out of leather and then just keeps on rolling? Mm-hmm. That's what mine would be, because that's how I deal with things.

I also think it's sexinavocadip. Sexinavocadip. What about you, Josh? Oh my gosh. I would be the golden platypus. Oh. That just sounds very regal to me. I love that. I'd be Twinkle Toes tarantula. Love that. So many feet on a tarantula.

Well, by the mid-70s, those theater commune synergists are building furniture, making pottery, farming, planting trees, but they need money, and their little hobbies aren't cutting it. So, one day, Ed Bass, a Texas oil billionaire, finds himself shopping for some handmade furniture at Synergia Ranch. Ed Bass was his real name. He didn't, like, take on a fish persona. There's so many oil tycoons in this story with animal names. Right at the top.

So Bass is delighted with the multifaceted and ecologically minded vibe at Synergia and signs up for their drama workshops because, again, these are actors. And I'm repeating that because it doesn't seem like they are qualified to do much else. And in 1978, Ed joins the crew. So what do we think? I think mushrooms. This absolutely smacks of so many mushrooms and I'm here for it and I love it and I support that. And I've been there. Do you ever hear a story where like it's a person's behavior and they just tell the story in kind of broad strokes and then you learn like years later what drug caused that? I've been that person.

I've been like, yeah, this thing came to me once in a dream. And then later I'm like, no, I'm not sure. That's fine. It was a dream, but I was awake. You don't go from a barren of fossil fuels to making pottery and taking acting classes without an awakening that is chemical. Agreed, sure.

That's a hypothesis, that's a hypothesis, not a theory. I'm with you, I think that must be the case. Thank you. Yeah. Well, with Ed's funding and John's vision, the synergists are doing just fine, but our hippie John becomes consumed with the doomsday clock. He believes that humans' time on Earth is limited,

and to achieve, quote, cosmic immortality, we need to send out, quote, space seeds to colonize Mars. Serious question. Why do rich guys always want to colonize Mars? Because there's no places on Earth left to colonize. You did it all. Ellie's like, it's very simple. It's very symbolic, right? Like, if you could put a person on Mars, it's kind of like you got space pregnant. You did get space pregnant.

Wow. Well, in 1984, John and Ed create a company with the goal of developing a complete self-sustaining ecosystem that can support life on Mars. And since Mars, famously, has no resources to support human life, all of nature's cycles have to be contained within these things they call biospheres. Even the CO2 people exhale will have to be turned back into breathable air by the ecosystem's plants. And they call their new project the Space Biosphere Ventures Corporation. The long-term goal is to see a biosphere in orbit in just four years. Ed envisions the full Biosphere 2 project running for a century.

Wow. That's ambitious. That's so ambitious. So Bass invests an astounding $150 million into the construction of a functional biosphere to prove that their idea can work. Wait, is he related to famous space enthusiast Lance Bass? It just occurred to me. It's like, what's up with guys named Bass wanting to go to space? So in 1991, on a plot of arid desert land in Arizona, they build the very first multi-person biosphere, and they call it Biosphere 2. Any guesses what happened to Biosphere 1?

We're pissing and shitting on it right now. Right now, Ali? You see me from the shoulders up, baby. You don't know what's going on. That's right. We're using it right now. Biosphere 1 is Earth. So where's all that money going?

Well, the biosphere is eight stories tall and it covers 3.14 acres. Yes, those nerds really added a pie joke into their research facility. I love it. It's also got two geodesic domes named the lungs that regulate air pressure. There are seven different areas that represent different ecological biomes like a marsh, a 25-foot deep ocean, a desert, and even a rainforest. And almost 3,000 animals are brought inside, including hummingbirds, coral, shrimp, tilapia, bush babies, and cockroaches.

Hmm, why the cockroaches, do they say? Yes, they are used to recycle plant matter and release nitrogen back into the soil. See, everything has a purpose. They didn't just come in on an Amazon box or something. They're like, let them stay. No. This is like Noah's Ark, but grosser.

But I will say, remember the roaches for later. Oh, I will. Oh, no. Also, there's a small lemur-like creature called a gallegos, which is included at the suggestion of one of John Allen's friends, the beat writer William S. Burroughs. But you know what I thought of, as soon as I heard all of these, like the lungs and all of these biomes and all of these

animals was, all of this is going to be expensive. Yeah. Yeah. And we found it'll cost $1 million a year just to operate. Yeah. Yeah. And we found it'll cost one million dollars a year just to operate. Yeah. So it sounds like Ed Bass will be burning a lot of that oil money.

And 150 million, I looked it up, is about 424 million present day. Oh. Wow. That's so much money. I do appreciate that they kind of skipped the step of having rich parents and were just like, we're going to go right from being rich to being performance artists. Hello, I'm Emily, one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the

lives of our biggest celebrities. Some of them hit the big time overnight, some had to plug away for years, but in our latest series we're talking about a man who was world famous before he was even born. A life of extreme privilege that was mapped out from the start, but left him struggling to find his true purpose. A man who, compared to his big brother, felt a bit, you know, spare. Yes, it's Prince Harry. You might think you know everything about him, but trust me, there's even more. We follow Harry and the obsessive

all-consuming relationship of his life not with Megan but the British tabloid press. Hounded and harassed Harry is taking on an institution almost every bit as powerful as his own royal family. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and and ad free on Wandery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wandery app. Are you tired of dating assholes? Do you want a Prince Charming? If so, we're filming a reality show. Sign up here. 12 American women are flown over to the UK for a bachelor-style reality dating show.

There are so many questions about a show like this, because it's so odd. These women have been told that they were going to be dating the world's most eligible bachelor, Prince Harry. What? Y'all playing with me, right? You can binge The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace exclusively from Wondry+. Join Wondry+, in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app.

podcasts or the Wondry app. So John and Ed are in it for $150 million dollars with a $1 million dollar a year operating budget and their plan is to mount a two year long study where eight lucky people will be locked into the airtight, self-contained ecosystem of the biosphere without any outside interference. What do you think those lucky people going inside biosphere are called? Biosphere-ians. Yes, that's right! Woo! Doesn't it just like roll right off the tongue?

Beautiful. Would you sign up for it? No. No. No. No. You're like hard pants. Well, now that the stage is set for our flop, let's meet our players with a game.

This game is called Mate Date Eliminate. It's like fuck, marry, kill, but for the less violent and more commitment phobic crowd. So I'll introduce you to our biospherians and you'll decide who you want to mate, wink, wink, date or eliminate from the biosphere. And remember, you're trapped inside a massive science experiment for two years. Great.

Okay. So, Josh, I'll start with you. Okay. Mate, date, or eliminate. We have Mark von Thieleau, aka Laser, age 30. He's a Belgian engineer and a mechanic. He can, quote, fix anything. We also have Abigail Alling, age 31.

She's a biologist who specializes in marine life and forestry and designed Biosphere 2's indoor oceans and marshlands. And finally we have Jane Pointer, age 29. She's from Surrey, England and has a British accent. She's here to manage the agriculture systems. She's great with goats and chickens. She also plays the flute and the balalaika,

a triangular stringed instrument popular in Russian folk music. So Josh, with Mark, Abigail and Jane, mate, date or eliminate. Okay, well I'm gonna start by eliminating the flute. Oh! I don't, you know, I can't do, I can't do in one of these people, but that flute's gotta go.

I'm not hanging out in the three-acre space, just somebody like... But it's just, I can't do it. I would eliminate myself. Oh, flautaphobe. I mean, look, I'm not anti-flute. But I just think if we're gonna be in a place together for years, two years, I would rather know music than just flute music.

Sorry, Jane. I think I'd probably be on the outs with her once I throw her flute in the ocean. I just picture her outside in the parking lot, just serenading from the other side of the glass. Do-do-do-do-do. It's too bad you can't play the flute. Yeah. And then have one hand longingly on the glass, but you need both of those hands to do the flute. That doesn't work. And then I guess I would mate with Mark because he's an engineer, he knows structural integrity.

And then date Abigail as the second person. Abigail. Yeah, I think we would get along. Oh my god, I love that. All right, so for our next three biospherians, mate, date, or eliminate, we have Tabor McCallum, age 27. He's the coordinator of the laboratory and is considered a genius by his sphere mates. It's his job to test the soil and atmosphere. To pass the time, he's bringing his cello,

conga drums, and synthesizer into the biosphere. See, cello over flute if you got to pick one instrument. Cello. Hehehehe. We also have Sally Silverstone, age 36. She's also British, lived in the Synergia commune and did drought relief work in India. She will be in charge of the finances and keeping things orderly. She's a sci-fi nerd who loves space.

And finally, Linda Lee, age 39. She's a tough botanist and also lived in the commune. Her specialty is prairie grass. She will be bringing woodwind instruments, including the saxophone, which I should note, she's still learning. Wow. That's very important. Okay. So we have Tabor, Sally, and Linda.

Okay. We're have Tabor, Sally, and Linda. Okay. We're eliminating the saxophone. I mean, easy. A beginner saxophone player is pretty tough. And I'm sorry, Prairie Grass? Yeah. Come on. I need a little more diversity of knowledge there. I feel like it's too much pressure to date a genius.

Yeah. So we'll mate with Taber, date Sally. Agreed. All across the board. Okay, since I only have two biospherians left, you'll both decide which person to mate or eliminate. Okay. We have Mark Nelson, age 44. He's also coming from the Synergia Ranch and a graduate of Dartmouth. He's interested in recycling wastewater. He has a degree in philosophy.

He's out. I don't want the guy doing the plumbing to be a philosophy major. We also have Dr. Roy Walford, age 67, studies aging at UCLA and Biosphere 2's only doctor. Dr. Roy is a fitness enthusiast and believes he'll live to 120 years old. OK. I'm retiring him. He's the only doctor, though.

Oh, he's like the only medical doctor. Mm hmm. He's into fitness. I'm into fitness medical expertise into my biosphere. Oh, my gosh. Oh, man. I mean, the philosophy, you guys gotta go. Yeah. -♪ Well, you may have noticed that John and Ed

are not on that list, but many of the biospherians did come from Synergia Ranch. Oh, also, Mark and Abigail and Taber and Jane are in committed relationships when they entered the biosphere. So you all just broke some hearts. With people outside the biosphere? No, with each other. Oh, with each other? Yeah. Got it. Those are two couples. Two couples. Yeah. Mark and Abigail, Tabor and Jane. I thought you meant they all four had partners or they were a quadruple. They came from a commune.

Yeah, right. That's what I was thinking. Well, in September of 1991, the crew is ready to enter Biosphere 2. The mission kicks off with a somber scientific occasion. A big dance party. Stop. Who do you think should be invited to a, a big dance party. Stop. Who do you think should be invited to, like, a biosphere dance party? I think Arnold Schwarzenegger should just be on the guest list for some sort of fitness and celebrity and just a wacky.

That seems like a Stallone or a Schwarzenegger would get invited to it for more publicity. I love that you're seeing this as kind of a planet Hollywood ribbon cutting type occasion. Thank you. Like Tom Cruise definitely passed, but Schwarzenegger was like, you know? Yep. Well, in fact, LSD guru, Timothy Leary,

and actor Woody Harrelson are in attendance. There you go. Of course they are. Yeah. Of course. So on September 16th, 1991, the eight biospherians walk into Biosphere 2 and the press are not impressed. In fact, they're skeptical of this whole spectacle. One reason, the biospherians are wearing jumpsuits that look like surplus costumes from Star Trek 6, according to the New York Times. The Biospherians are wearing jumpsuits that look like surplus costumes from Star Trek

6, according to the New York Times. And they noticed that some of the people involved don't have doctorates or even bachelor degrees in their field. To the critics, these theater commune people are doing, quote, showbiz, not science. Oh no. That's such a ruthless burn against anyone who's trying to do science too. Well, to get the press off their backs and make Ed and John's dreams come true, the biospherians need to prove that they can run a self-sustained ecosystem for as long as possible.

That means no supply deliveries. It also means keeping their environment in balance so they can survive. And the biosphere needs to be hermetically sealed. Oh. This sounds like eight The Shining's going on at once. Yeah. And at first, the biospherians go to work doing their thing, observing the environment, being one with nature and with technology and also with each other. I bet. How long do you think it is

before someone ends up in the hospital? There's a hospital? Or they have to get, like, airlifted out of the hermetically sealed biosphere? Regardless, it's within a week. It's definitely within a fortnight. Yes, just two weeks into the Biosphere 2 experiment, the British agriculturist Jane Poynter accidentally cuts off the tip of her middle finger in a rice-threshing machine.

No! Her flute finger! Her flute finger. One of ten of them! Dr. Walford does his best to reattach it, but Pointer is sent to a hospital for surgery after his treatment doesn't take. Wait, her last name is Pointer? Was it her pointer finger? No, it says her middle finger.

Her middle finger. So Jane Pointer did not get off her pointer finger. No. I'll tell you what, once I'm getting medevaced from a biosphere, my middle finger becomes my pointing finger. So she leaves to go get surgery. Jane does come back to the biosphere within hours. This doesn't mean the experiment has failed, right? Yeah, it does. Yeah, the press also takes it that way. After all, people on Mars don't get to just run to the hospital for minor surgeries. Also,

and this is probably a bigger deal than the surgery, Jane is seen walking back into Biosphere 2 with a duffel bag. Wow. No. Yeah. What do you think she brought? Gauze. Gloves. Rice. Yeah. We don't want to thresh that rice anymore. Well, months later, reporters learned that she brought in items like computer parts and color film.

According to the documentary, maybe an extra t-shirt. And according to Jane, it was just some drawings and a quote, a couple things like that. Again, they're supposed to be cut off from the outside world and they keep getting deliveries. You can't do that in outer space. Not yet. This is how much they believe in the biosphere mission. They're planning for the future where you can get deliveries on Mars. That's how optimistic they are. It's going to be a hit. What kind of deliveries? Were they like pepperoni or like Canadian bacon and pineapple?

What kind of deliveries? Were they like pepperoni or like Canadian bacon and a pineapple? Well, soon though, Jane might be wishing that she brought in a conflict resolution specialist because as you'll hear, if the biosphere doesn't kill her, her colleagues might. Now, unsurprisingly, biosiosphere 2 relies on the sun. And for both winters during the experiment, the unusually cloudy weather from an El Nino affects the growth of the crops inside. That creates a cascade effect. First, the pollinators, the bees and hummingbirds, drop dead. That's gonna happen.

So the biospherians have to pollinate everything by hand. Oof. Then the pigs raid the vegetable garden until they too die. No. They OD'd on vegetables? No, the vegetables died. Oh, I thought the pigs died. I thought the pigs were just like,

I don't want to live anymore. I'm just going to take carrots to the dome till it's curtains for me. Also, nematodes and mites ravage the crops that are left, especially the beans. Tomatoes and mushrooms die since it gets too humid and warm. The squash grows mildew, and their chickens are barely laying any eggs.

Heavens. Oh, and those cockroaches they brought in to help enrich the soil? The repellent they use against the mites attracts even more roaches. They basically run the joint now, eating absolutely everything and multiplying to a horrifying degree. No, no, this is hell for me. I should have gone straight to eliminate myself in our previous game. Oh no.

Yeah, it gets to the point where the biospherians are using electric hairdryers to blow them off of the plants. The one upside, silver lining, they can feed those cockroaches to the chickens. Nice. I gather I already know the answer to this question, but how would you be feeling right now? I'd be feeling great because like three weeks ago I would have gone home. I would be feeling hopeful that I would be released soon. From this mortal coil?

Yes, yes. I would have that anxious pit when you, everyone wants to leave, but no one will say like, let's get out of here. And I'll be like, who's going to say it first? Who's going to say it first? Who's going to say it first? Like when you sit down at a restaurant and no one really likes the menu, and then finally someone's like, let's just go somewhere else.

That I would, I wouldn't be wanting to say that. So bad. The roaches, the roaches. That's, you can't, it's untenable. Yeah, I would kick balls change in exit stage right real quick. Got it. So the food situation becomes a real problem.

And Sally Silverstone, the designated food systems manager, gets really depressed when the crops fail. More so than the other biospherians since it's her job. And her mood becomes tied to how well the garden's growing. This reminds me of the mental state of all my friends playing Animal Crossing early in the pandemic. It's, it's also a very, I live in LA and it's culturally very much like LA. Someone gets a call back and suddenly they're off their medication, you know. Yeah. So I get it.

Yeah. Life inside the biosphere is sort of how you'd expect a failing human experiment. Tense. Sure. Remember the Gallagos, the lemur-like animal that William S. Burroughs recommended? Apparently, it keeps them up all night with its screeching, keeping them tired and on edge. Oh, they have three acres. Is it in the, like in the TV room? When you got a screaming lemur, three acres shrinks down real quick.

Yeah. Screaming lemurs! Now even though most of the biospherians have televisions in their apartments, they don't provide much comfort because seeing a McDonald's ad is like torture. Because by now, they're starving. On average, the crew loses 16% of their body weight. Amazing. At some points, biospherians start stealing food

from each other and hoarding it for themselves. No. Oh, dear. The married ones, I feel like the married ones would be like, you know what? We're set for life. I'm going to steal this from her. What's she going to do? There's no lawyers in here. So what? She're set for life. I'm gonna steal this from her. What's she gonna do? There's no lawyers in here.

So what? She can't divorce me. Who would you steal from first? I'm gonna pay you aloe honey and rice. Yeah. In a moldy sweet potato. Well, food expert Sally has to come up with new ways to eat the few surviving plants over and over again.

And having to plan two meals a day for eight people for two years, she gets really creative. She invents banana bean stew and biospherian beet soup, which does not contain biospherians. Good, but the big hit, grass a la roaches. I know. You could definitely make roach scampi if you had a little bit of garlic though. The shrimp of the land. Pretty much. Now, perhaps unsurprisingly, the tension mounts between the biospherians.

According to a former board member, the crew squabble with each other and with mission control where John Allen, aka Johnny Dolphin, aka Biosphere Zaddy, is watching them. Because of the tight living conditions, seemingly insignificant interpersonal challenges, quote, magnify over time. There are instances of cups being thrown and people spitting at others. And now two factions form. One that wants to bring in supplies and the other that wants to keep the experiment pure. The two groups stop talking to each other. OK, so I feel like they're probably stealing from each other. These two little. Yeah.

Oh, rival gangs, if you will. Oh, for sure. It's fascinating that it took 10 years after this still for Survivor to exist. Yeah, you just see them be like, we gotta put this on TV now. Speaking of like things taking a really long time afterwards, like in the years since, the Biospherians have revealed surprisingly few specifics about these fights. But if you were stuck in a theater commune turned science project for two years, wouldn't you want to start gossiping the moment you stepped outside?

Yes, but they treat it like war, where they're like, I can't talk about the things I've seen, don't ask me. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah, there definitely might be some trauma. Too early to be unearthed from the moldy grounds. Now, if you think not eating will make you hate your roommates, try not breathing.

In the winter of 1993, the biosphere itself gets sick. Cool. Jane, the agriculturist, notices that the soil is spawning an oxygen-gulping bacteria. As the CO2 spikes and the oxygen dwindles, the crew struggles to breathe as if they're at a higher elevation. They can't finish a sentence without taking an extra breath or walk up steps. And in January of 1993, liquid oxygen is injected into the biosphere. As soon as the oxygen arrives, the crew begin running happy laps around the

space. It's like a casino. Don't they give more oxygen in a casino? Like, no windows, you can't get out. It's definitely a mood booster. Still, Jane Pointer isn't doing so well. At one point, she's picking sweet potato greens to feed the goats, and she has a pretty trippy experience. So, Allie, could you please read Jane's account of literally time traveling? Allie- I came out the other side and was embroiled in a very fervent argument with my much older brother. And what was so disconcerting about it was that it really was hallucinatory. It

was like I could smell it, feel it. It was very weird. Just to be clear, her brother is not in the biosphere. Okay, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. Oh, that's tough. Yeah. And this is after they got oxygen or no? Were they still hypoxic? But nobody really knows why it's happening. Could be the oxygen problem, could be the isolation from the outside world and they're just going mad. Finally, on September 26, 1993, the two-year mission

is complete. So the eight biospherians are free to breathe as much as they want. No, until 2024. Yeah. But they end up suffocating for a very different reason. To explain, let's play a clip of Jane Poynter giving a TED talk about Biosphere 2 in 2009. And the day I came out of Biosphere 2, I was thrilled I was going to see all my family and my friends. And for two years, I had been seeing people through the glass. And everybody ran up to me and I recoiled.

They stank. People stink. We stink of hairspray and underarm deodorant and all kinds of stuff. Now, we had stuff in... She's gotten too accustomed to just B.O. and manure and roach smells. Like, I'm sure when she got out, the family wasn't like, well, you smell great. We're the problem. Wow. Can you imagine being like her sister or whatever is just like so excited to see her puts on

some Estee Lauder youth dew or whatever was popular at the time? That's the welcome you get. Get me back to the Roaches. Bring me back in. Get the oxygen out of here. Smells like bathing. I can't. I simply can't. She's got one little roach perched on her shoulder. Jiminy roach says you reek. Don't you dare touch my roach. So the first mission aboard Biosphere 2 is almost a success.

This mission aboard Biosphere 2 is almost a success. Just kidding, it's a massive failure. Yeah. One ecologist declares, quote, the Biosphere 2 experiment failed to generate sufficient breathable air, drinkable water, and adequate food for just eight humans despite an expenditure of $200 million. Wow. Mm. The biospherians survive, but only with occasional loot drops.

Okay, a lot of loot drops. There were at least three unplanned openings of the biosphere that were reported on during the experiment. One for Jane's surgery, another to swap out some research specimens, and a third to bring in protein powder for Dr. Roy's nutrition experiments. They insist it's not because they desperately needed food, even though obviously they did. I was thinking that like someone's mom sent them a care package like a freshman at college

or something. I made cookies. Yeah. Yeah. Your blanket, you left it here, but I know you miss it. Additionally, it turns out that a CO2 scrubber, the kind you find in select submarines, was smuggled into the biosphere at the start of the mission. Some journalists think it invalidates the entire experiment. I don't think it was like super valid before that either. Yeah, I know.

Hey, from the bat though, from the get-go, costume department nailed it. Costume department is like, listen, our mission stops once they enter that thing and they look amazing. They're wearing spacesuits. We got a mention in the New York Times. That's the only thing that went right. That's right. Now, despite all of this, John Allen and Ed Bass, they aren't finished. The biosphere surprisingly gets a do-over and a second mission is planned. A few extra species are added to balance out the ecosystem.

They recruit a smaller crew. And on March 6th, 1994, Biosphere 2's second mission begins. How are you feeling about this second go? I mean, this is like Netflix where some things get a season two and others don't and it's cryptic and you'll never know why. Yeah. I respect the tenacity. Sure.

But if I'd heard about Biosphere 1, what it would take to get me in Biosphere 2 would be like, you would have to chloroform me and drag me in. Well, some people share that sentiment, because the experimental tweaks are not enough to appease the guy with the bag, Ed Bass. The bad PR and the fact that Ed spent an additional $50 million on top of his initial $150 million investment has made him understandably concerned. Sure.

Ed isn't sure if Biosphere 2 is passing the smell test. So even though the second experiment is still in progress, he brings in a bloodhound to sniff out anything suspicious. A hot shot money guy from Beverly Hills, Steve Bannon. No. Didn't expect that one, did you? No way. Really?

What a twist. Remember, this is 1993, long before Bannon gets involved in right-wing politics. Bannon is an ex-banker and an aspiring Hollywood producer slash investment consultant. Ed Bass first tasks Bannon with going ex-banker and an aspiring Hollywood producer slash investment consultant. Ed Bass first tasks Bannon with going to New York City to drum up new capital. Bannon figures he can sell biospheres to the government and even proposes a biosphere three Las Vegas resort and casino.

Playing in Hollywood indeed. It's just somebody from the Trump administration and his only idea was casino is like so on the nose. I know. Did they run out of money and they only made it four-sided, it's just the Luxor now? They're like, you know what, it's not a true desictome. It's fine. The Byromid.

Yeah. So, I mean, no one's interested in that idea. And unable to raise more money, Bannon is left with one option. Cut costs. Bannon convinces Ed that John Allen needs to be fired as the CEO of Space Biosphere Ventures, and Ed agrees. Can you guess who the new CEO will be? Oh no. Bass installs Bannon as the acting CEO. Sure.

Yeah, I figured. Then, on April 1st, 1994, when John Allen and other administrators are in Japan, Steve Bannon seizes control of the Biosphere 2 facility with a group of armed U.S. Marshals and administrators. He did an inspherection. Inspherection. He did an in-sphere-ection. In-sphere-ection. Sure did. No! Yep. The New Yorker describes it as a paramilitary takeover. So John Allen and his loyal synergist fear for the safety of the researcher still in

the biodome, but they're out of the country, unable to do anything about it. Except, that is, for one of the original biospherian couples, Abigail Alling, the biologist, and Mark Laser Von Theo, the mechanic. Early in the morning on April 4th, 1994, Abigail and Laser break onto the grounds of Biosphere 2, throw open five doors, and smash some glass panels near the ventilation system. They destroy the seal and sabotage the facility. That's too bad, because things were going so well before. Yeah. Abigail and Mark are arrested for trespassing and burglary and, though it's unclear how

those charges ended up, they admit to the sabotage and tell reporters they were determined to bring the project to an end because they feared for the safety of the second crew who were already inside. So the second mission ends abruptly, and so does the dream of Biosphere 2. Thanks Steve Bannon. Now do America. So John Allen and Ed Bass never reached their dream of sending Biospheres to Mars. They didn't even get close. Not even close.

But they did get some pretty cool scientific research done, right? No. No, definitely not. Yeah, even though there were thousands of sensors installed in the facility, apparently only a fraction of the data they collected was ever analyzed. In fact, there is very little of that data available today and nobody knows where it all went. What? Wow. Wait, wasn't on 10,000 floppy disks?

That's how I measure a year. Yeah. So let's do a little where are they now. Please. The biodome served as a filming location for the 1996 movie, Biodome. The Pauly Shore film, of course. Yes, Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin, who play two losers who accidentally get locked inside

Biosphere 2 with a team of scientists. In 2011, Ed Bass donated the facility to the University of Arizona with an additional $50 million to keep it running. Wow. It currently operates as a research center run by real research experts, and yes, you can visit it. Allie, I heard from a little birdie that you have visited. I have.

I went there like a year and a half ago. So I've smelled it. I've smelled it you guys. There's a lot of carpet that you would find in like a 1995 classroom. Wow. Carpet? There's a lot of carpet from what I remember. I mean not in the rainforest but the rainforest, you walk in there. But still, bad choice. I know right? Just thinking of the moisture. There's so many roaches and I took a couple pictures of the roaches and I thought how these roaches get in here? And now I realized that those are legacy roaches. Like those are the most nepo baby roaches ever in the world.

They're still there. Yuck. But yeah, it was the humidity was crushing. It was, you need all the hairspray, you need all the frizzies, you need all the moisture lock you can get in that place. You get to sit at the table where they all tried to kill each other. It's lovely. What a dream. Yeah, you're making me want to go. I know. That sounds cool.

If you are ever in that part of Arizona, be bop over there. Just do it. Yeah, got it. You'll feel so much better about your own life after that. I mean, like, I'm a little messy, but I'm not Biosphere too messy. So John Allen, he's still doing ecological projects around the world. Good for him. Steve Bannon.

Yeah, what happened to him? Well, as we know, he went on to run the right wing blog Breitbart and became an important advisor to Donald Trump. Lovebirds, Jane Pointer, the one with the finger, and Tabor McCallum, the genius conchadrummer, have carried on John Allen's dream of going to Mars by conducting experiments at NASA. Cool. Okay. Yeah, good for them.

Fun fact, Sally Silverstone, the food systems manager, wrote a cookbook in 1993 called Eating In From the Field to the Kitchen in Biosphere 2. It features recipes like her classic banana bean stew. Oh, it's like water pudding. This is water. So here on the Big Flop, we like to end on an uplifting note. Even though all of the data is gone from the experiments, can you think of any So, here on the big flop, we like to end on an uplifting note. Even though all of the data is gone from the experiments, can you think of any silver linings

from Biosphere 2? I just think squandering a bunch of rich maniac money on something that even seems remotely scientific or beneficial to humanity is so much better than if they had just like Dug up coal and set it on fire And oil which is their plan. So it just they kept a cold guy and an oil guy distracted for like a decade It's like the finger paints of the billionaire You know in all sincerity you learn from every failure. So I'm sure that if they had any data that they published, people could learn from it.

So that's a theoretical and not a practical. But tourism, that's important for currently for Arizona. This podcast episode is good. Yeah, it's gonna be so good. It's gonna be worth the $200 million. Yeah. Biosphere 2 is a one-of-a-kind research facility and the largest Earth science lab in the world. That's incredible.

That's great. Yeah. So there's that. And then I think most importantly, Biosphere 2 helped us raise awareness of how precious Biosphere 1 actually is. You know? So what though? Yeah, I don't think before I heard this story I was like, man, fuck Earth.

So now that you both know about Biosphere 2, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop? I'm going to go baby flop. Wow, I was thinking that too, from a philosophical perspective. Maybe it steered our navigation a little bit farther away from like, let's immediately colonize another place. Maybe if they hadn't have flopped so hard, we'd have spent money and lives trying to make this happen sooner, terraforming Mars. So maybe that's good. Maybe it turned some money away from that. So I'm gonna say baby flop.

I think that's great. Yeah, the fact that it's not the memorial biosphere too is good, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of where I am, right? It's like, it's kind of a no harm, no foul situation. There's only eight people in there. They all made it out alive.

Yeah. When you do a scientific experiment, you go, what is the result of this and how can I learn from it? And what they learned was, whoops, and I think that's valuable. Their published paper is just, and then it's end. Well, thank you so much to our out of this world guests, Josh Gondelman and Allie Ward, for joining us here on The Big Flop. And of course, thanks to all of you for listening. Remember, if you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review. And we'll be back next week to talk about a movie subscription service that was too good to be true. That's right. We're tackling

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