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Biosphere 2 is an Earth systems science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. It has been owned by the University of Arizona since 2011. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe. It is a 〔(Biosphere 2 - Fast Facts )〕 structure originally built to be an artificial, materially closed ecological system, or vivarium. It remains the largest closed system ever created.〔Bahr, Jeff (2009) p.238〕 Biosphere 2 was originally meant to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with five areas based on biomes, and an agricultural area and human living and working space to study the interactions between humans, farming, and technology with the rest of nature. It also explored the use of closed biospheres in space colonization, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth's. Its five biome areas were a 1,900 square meter rainforest, an 850 square meter ocean with a coral reef, a 450 square meter mangrove wetlands, a 1,300 square meter savannah grassland, a 1,400 square meter fog desert, a 2,500 square meter agricultural system, a human habitat, and a below-ground infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center.〔(UASCIENCE Fast Facts )〕 Biosphere 2 was only used twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from 1991 to 1993, and the second time from March to September 1994. Both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animal and plant species, squabbling among the resident scientists and management issues. In June 1994, during the middle of the second experiment, Space Biosphere Ventures dissolved, and the structure was left in limbo. It was purchased in 1995 by Columbia University, who used it to run experiments until 2005. It then looked in danger of being demolished to make way for housing and retail stores, but was taken over for research by the University of Arizona in 2007; the University of Arizona assumed full ownership of the structure in 2011. == Planning and construction == Biosphere 2 was originally constructed between 1987 and 1991 by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Project funding came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass's Decisions Investment. The project cost US$200 million from 1985 to 2007. It was named "Biosphere 2" because it was meant to be the second fully self-sufficient biosphere, after the Earth itself. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Biosphere 2」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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