About an hour north of our base camp in Tucson is the home to Biosphere 2. Originally built in in the early 1980s as a closed-system experiment, it is now owned by the University of Arizona for the purpose of research and education. Lisa and I first toured the facility in 2017 and it is wonderful to see it still active and attracting tourists.

There have been a few changes since we last visited, notably the fact that the general tour is now self-guided. You load an app on your phone when you arrive and narrators guide you through the various domes and enclosed ecosystems. I typically get more out of a tour this way because I often struggle hearing tour guides even with my bionic ear devices. It’s also nice to go at one’s own pace rather than being led around like cattle. The app is available to anyone curious about this place, but seeing it in person is awesome.

They added a Freight Farm where they are experimenting with vertical hydroponic farming under perfect lighting conditions in shipping containers. U of Arizona students get to operate these and local food pantries are the recipients of the food. We may see more of this type of vegetable farming in the future, particularly if they can get them to work off-grid. Right now the lights are the most needy part of the system in terms of electricity.

The other most notable change for us was the removal of the ocean wave generator. This was part of the original build to breed and manipulate coral in the Biosphere 2’s simulated ocean to be more resilient as the earth’s climate changes. Unfortunately, they lost most of the coral and have since replaced the wave generator with an overlaying structure for various other types of ocean research.

It was worth taking another trip out to see it all again, especially since Lisa and I both read a book about the original experiment after our last visit.