We’re reminded, thanks to a news item by David Knowles at AOL.com’s Sphere News, of how valuable it can be to fail, even on a grand scale (and perhaps especially so). Not only is there the learning experience and the character-building and all, but there’s always the chance that the failure itself may plant the seed for subsequent and unanticipated success and insight. Just as with the building materials used with the construction of the proverbial Hades Expressway, Biosphere 2 was cobbled together with good intentions.

The 3-acre site north of Tucson, Ariz., was intended to function as a self-contained network of engineered biomes including forest, ocean and coral reef, savanna, and wetlands. The web of systems were hoped adequate to provide food, water and oxygen to sustain the human crew, livestock and agricultural crops.

But the science did not pan out; oxygen levels dropped and carbon dioxide levels increased, plants and livestock died. And the social psychology of the project was perhaps even worse: factions developed within the group, old friends became enemies and the interpersonal denouement served to inspire the Dutch television creatives to pitch what we now know as the Big Brother reality TV show. Biosphere 2 quickly became fodder for late-night comedians and anti-environmentalists alike.

But after the jokes died down, something funny happened. After the facility enshrouded in ignobility closed in the mid 1990s, its management was ceded over to the University of Arizona and Columbia University, where scientists quietly went about the business of conducting research.

And as Knowles spells out in the article at Sphere, the very scale of the project combined with the way in which it failed has been serving environmental science research projects like a champion. Because of Biosphere 2′s underperforming atmospheric and hydrologic systems, it has become invaluable in modeling and studying the effects of climatic disruption and change. Insight into how plants respond to increased carbon dioxide levels or to drought are being achieved through work conducted at Biosphere 2 today.

The Biosphere 2 facility is open to the public, and invites all comers to have a look: rubber-necking fans of social train wrecks and committed environmentalists alike can make the trek and learn more not only about what failed, but of what victories are now being snatched from those jaws of defeat.

By David Bois

Photo courtesy of DrStarbuck, via Wikimedia Commons