Biosphere 2

With a little imagination you can leave planet Earth – the one and only Biosphere – and enter Biosphere 2. Bio 2 is (was) a self sustaining natural environment designed to study life under controlled conditions. Imagine living under a sealed glass bubble for 2 years (early 90’s) and growing your own food – a research team accomplished this. In the glass bubble you walk in a rainforest, desert, savannah and ocean. How amazing to experience these so different ecosystems all in the same day – everyday.
Could I live here for 2 years? Don’t know. I took the tour and would certainly try it for a week if I could – could haul in Stumptown coffee and Breakside IPA! You must see Biosphere 2 first hand to really grasp what it was like to live under a glass bubble (90 feet tall inside). Fascinating!
There must be incredible views of the Sonoran desert. You can see Catalina Mountains from inside the bubble. Imagine the sunrise and sunsets glimmering through the glass.
Each researcher in Biosphere 2 had their own small 2 story, 2 room apartment. They shared a gourmet kitchen and dining room. Remember, they grew their own food. Coffee cherries (beans) were hard to grow so they enjoyed coffee only once every 2 weeks. Dah! I need my buzz everyday! And most likely no craft beer. Dah again!
On the tour you observe how this engineering marvel worked to sustain life – mind boggling! Today Arizona University runs the Biosphere 2 and is experimenting to understand the interaction of water with the sun, air and soil to improve living on planet Earth – our Biosphere – with an ever changing climate with more drought. This study is so vital so future generations can enjoy the amazing natural worlds as we do now. And you must see the soil structures built by Arizona University and its contractors to conduct their research – mind boggling too!
If you make it to Tucson, make time for a Biosphere 2 tour – «Awe”-some!

If you were alive in the early 90’s you probably remember the Biosphere 2 where a group of researchers locked themselves away from the world for 2 years, grew their own food, and used plants to produce as much of their own oxygen as they could. It was designed as an experiment to see if human beings could survive on another planet and generated a lot of useful findings. What you may not have realized is that the structure is still there and these days its owned and used by the University of Arizona for ongoing research, however, you can go inside and take a great tour.
Now I have a long relationship with this place, I was a news producer at the NBC affiliate in Tucson when the Biospherians were inside. We ran a lot of stories, broke some news about what was happening, and I even got to interview some of the researchers through a window once. Back in the early 2000’s, when Columbia University was running the site, I took a tour that went inside. However, if you took an early tour or you’ve never been, you should definitely go back. The early tours basically showed you a film, took you inside, pointed out the living quarters, and pointed at the indoor ocean and rainforest. Now, you get to go down on the floor of the rainforest, the beach of the ocean, underneath into the tunnels that run under the structure, and even through the tunnels into the giant «lungs» that regulated the air pressure.
They’ve also built an additional area next to the ocean that is reminiscent of the exhibits found at an aquarium which is currently focused on the Sea of Cortez.
The only reason I take a star away is that our tour guide, who didn’t even live in Tucson when the experiment was happening, spent a lot of time bashing the media coverage at the time and also made it sound as if the experiment took place SO long ago, like maybe back in the 50’s or something, as opposed to the early 90’s. Considering that the Biosphere 2 is now operated by the University of Arizona, they should stop with the incessant cheerleading for the original crew and admit that some of what they did and who they were was a little nuts and that not everything worked as planned. Blaming the media, when they purposely tried to mislead us at the time, is not what I expect from a major research university.
That being said, the Biosphere 2 is a really cool structure that housed an unprecedented experiment and is well worth visiting.
Oh, and for those who are wondering what happened to the Biosphere 1, it’s the Earth. The conceit of the creators was that they were building a second Earth.

Went in January, cold as heck… inside and out. Take a jacket with you. Tour is about an hour and a half long. Was not worth the $ 20 a person we paid for sure. I found the tour to be boring. It is a 5 – 10 minute walk just to get to the tour check in.

I recommend researching the Biosphere 2 online before coming here. I wish I had done that so the tour would have been more significant.
It is interesting, and the structure is very strange. Worth checking out at least once.
I wasn’t happy with our tour guide. She was a little crazy, and gave a very narrow view. She glorified the Biosphere and the whole thing felt very propagandic. At one point she stated that the scientists that lived there were made fun of all the time, then proceeded to point at a little girl and asked «ARE YOU MADE FUN OF AT SCHOOL? DO THEY MAKE FUN OF YOU THERE?» Girl looks at her confused and uncomfortably says «no». She then continued to conduct her tour in a frantic manner, pie eyed and stating how great the Biosphere 2 was without saying any interesting discoveries/​facts.
What happened to tours with unbiased opinion? Do your research before you come here.

Very cool place. The tour was decent, but it’s really the whole idea of having a fully enclosed series of biomes that makes this place worth checking out. I paid $ 10 for the discounted UofA student/​faculty/​staff ticket but would have paid the full $ 20 for admission.
The tours last about 1.5 hrs, starting with a video and then a walk through the facility. You must take a tour to access any part of the facility or exhibit. Keep in mind there is a decent amount of stairs and walking. This place was not originally designed for the public, so the areas that you can access are very limited. You really don’t get to explore much of the different biomes which was probably the most disappointing aspect of the tour. The exhibits that you can view on your own prior to or after the tour are not very informative and a bit haphazardly put together. There is a lot of random art work and items without descriptions. There was also a lack of information about the two «missions» that went on at the facility in the early 90s. Our tour guide, however, was pretty knowledgeable about the history and past/​present research going on at Biosphere 2.
My favorite parts of the tour were the (brief) view of the rainforest and the «lung.» This lung was used when the system was fully closed. It’s a GINORMOUS room with an equally GINORMOUS diaphragm that rises and falls to accommodate the variations of pressure that come with fluctuations in temperature (PV=nRT!) to prevent the glass walls from exploding/​imploding. Quite magnificent and ingenious.
Overall, I agree this is a must-​see in Tucson purely because the whole concept is just crazy fascinating. It’s something that I can check off my list of things to see in Tucson. I probably won’t be back unless I have friends/​family in town who are interested.

This was one of our «must see» items during our trip to Tucson. It was near the top of every list that I viewed while planning, and it was worth the trip.
It is a little bit overpriced at $ 20/​adult, but I found a pamphlet at the airport that gave us $ 2 off two admissions.
The website noted that tours ran about every 30 – 45 minutes, but I guess we came during the off season because when we arrived and just missed the beginning 9:30 AM tour, the next one was at 10:30 AM. I was originally a bit frustrated by this, but there ended up being enough things to look at to easily occupy that entire hour.
There is a gift shop where you purchase your tickets for all of your vacation t-​shirt and postcard needs. You also could read some exhibits about the history in that starting room.
From there, you take a 5 – 10 minute walk to the Biosphere 2. On the way you can take a stop at a scenic overlook, and then a bit further down the path you can contemplate some of the modern art sculptures they have in a tiny sculpture garden. You walk past a bunch of tiny living spaces which they mentioned were used throughout the year for things like sleep away camps for students.
In the area where you start the tour, there are a bunch of exhibits, and you can also go upstairs to see the «biospherians’» kitchen that was used while the environment was sealed and hosted troupes of scientists. I will note that some of the exhibits seemed a bit out of place and dated, but overall there was a lot of good information there.
The tour starts out with an approximately 13 minute video (where you learn that, spoiler alarm, Biosphere 1 is actually Earth), and then you move on to actually touring the Biosphere 2! It didn’t seem like much walking as it was spread out over a full hour. You get impressed by how humid the rainforest section is, and then you get to walk through desert areas, etc.
Our tour guide, Victor, was very engaging, and he used a portable amplifier and microphone so that everyone in the group could hear him. Since we were in a much smaller group than tour capacity, he made a couple of extra stops to add more information than normal.
The end of the tour leaves you in an area where you can view the water section of the Biosphere 2 underwater via viewing windows. That area also houses an extensive fishing /​ocean /​aquarium-​esque museum exhibit (which we didn’t spend much time in as we weren’t in the mood for that).
On our way out, we stopped by the B2 café for a cookie and a bag of chips (the selection is mediocre as you normally see inmost museum environments).
Overall, we enjoyed the visit. It didn’t blow me out of the water (hence the 4 star review), but it was definitely interesting!

Very interesting and definitely worth seeing. I just wish Biosphere 2 was kept up a little bit better, especially the ocean. The tour guide was great though and our group had a nice time for the most part. I would recommend stopping by for a tour if you are in the area.

In the 1990s, scientists embarked on an ambitious experiment: build a completely enclosed, self-​sufficient ecological system. Biosphere 2, a massive facility that contains several distinct habitats (ex. tropical savannah, coastal fog desert, tropical rainforest, ocean), literally sought to put the Earth underneath the glass for science. For that alone, the Biosphere 2 deserves five stars.
The bad reviews listed here are somewhat puzzling. Some contend that the tour involves a lot of walking, but this is clearly mentioned on the University of Arizona’s website. Others complain that the venue is somehow outdated, which is an odd remark to make about a facility that was built a long time ago for a specific scientific purpose, not to accommodate public tours. One wonders if some of these detractors would walk into a museum of natural history and complain that archaeological, biological, or anthropological exhibits are similarly «outdated.» Other complaints listed below, (ex. power outages, specific tour guides) seem to be situational complaints, which I did not experience on my tour. My tour was pleasant and my tour guide was knowledgeable. The walking was significant, but not incredibly taxing for a healthy, able-​bodied person. There were, of course, variations in temperature and humidity from habitat to habitat, but they were not oppressive in the least.
If you come to Biosphere 2 with an appreciation for science, you’ll be rewarded with a tour of an expansive facility that sought to make a significant contribution to the field. Although publicly regarded as a failure at the time, the experiments conducted here seem to have made important contributions to science. The extent to which those contributions were valuable to the scientific community is not something I can attest to; however, I can stand in awe of the scope of the project.

We really enjoyed our visit to the Biosphere 2, but we’re scientists and psychologist, so it’s extra fascinating to us. My significant other had visited years ago, and there’s been tons of updates since. The tour was really fascinating, I wish they had a little more content on the interpersonal interactions of the teams that stayed there, but the biology/​science bits were also interesting.

Upon arrival… electricity was OUT!!! The whole transaction was manual. I understand some problems could arise however paying 108.00 for a family of 7, doesn’t add up to them not having suitable resources for emergencies such as this. After driving 2 hours to see this, using the bathroom was VERY complicated in the DARK!
The movie was outdated and the tour I was on, was very crowded. Be prepared to walk a lot with many stair cases on the way out! They allow you to bring your water however there is a machine in the media room that takes cash only (2.00 waters).
The «café» was closed.
The attraction in itself is VERY OUTDATED. I believe that it was OVERPRICED for what’s offered.
The «biomes» we’re not big at all and my kids wanted to check out where the scientists occupied while in missions… to which was not available for «viewing». Our tour guide was VERY knowledgable and experienced! (Norm) He knew all of the history and current research projects.

We have wanted to check out the biosphere 2 for a while so we finally did this time in Tucson. I am glad we went and it is a really cool facility. Tour guide Eric was very knowledgeable as well. It’s neat to see all the different biomes and to think about the work that 8 scientists had to do when they were sealed inside 25 years ago. The only disappointment, and admittedly I’m not sure how they would be able to avoid this, is the fact that a lot of the agricultural elements are no longer in place. We thought we’d see more of an actively managed agricultural facility but some of the areas have been converted (the LEO project for example). I also understand how important and unique the LEO project is with regards to research for U of A. Seeing the underground workings of the biosphere 2 was impressive as well.
You need to be prepared to be hot and sticky as many of the rooms are tropical and subtropical environments. The desert biome is actually a welcomed cooldown which was ironic. I think the idea of the biosphere 2 is more impressive than the tour of it though. There’s a lot of walking and a good number of steps along the way. I think $ 20 per person was a bit steep for the tour itself but with a facility like this one, I think they need a whole lot of $ 20 bills to pay the bills.
My wife and I both walked away with a feeling of «I’m glad we checked it out but it wasn’t as amazing as he hoped it to be.»

I have to be honest, I really wanted to love this place. However there were a few things that just did not make the experience enjoyable.
1. The admissions attendant did not let us know we could get a discount on our tickets for being AAA members. She only asked if were college students.
2. This tour is a LOT of walking, moving through small humid loud spaces, and outdoor sections. It was almost 90 degree’s that day and the bottled water is $ 2.00 from vending machines that ONLY take Dollar Bills. Come on guys if you’re going to dupe us into buying water at least have a machine that can accept cards or sell them to us yourselves.
3. Tour guide — Well this is the reason for the 2 stars. Claudio was very hostile, arrogant and evasive. He ruined the tour for many of us. While he encouraged questions he almost talked down to you if you asked him anything. We were all so excited to have a seasoned tour guide (20+years at the Biosphere 2) but that quickly made us realize that he is very bias & secretive.
We plan to go back again on a cooler day or early in the day with a hat & sunglasses, my own water, and try to get a different tour guide. There was plenty of information that he glossed over that I’d like to ask questions about without being met with such a strong personality.
Overall, its a great space — but don’t tell me stories about from what you did in the 90s and early 2000’s when its 2015. You guys are obviously working towards new developments. I guess in the meantime if I want to know what the inside looks like I’ll watch that comedy movie biodome. I’d say its worth checking out but take heed to my suggestions. $ 20 a person with no discounts, cold water and a stuffy tour guide doesn’t make for a good experience.

This is a really cool facility, and is definitely worth coming to see — just make sure you come on a day when the weather is nice enough that the sun isn’t going to cook you alive.
We spent time walking around the campus, and we also took the guided tour. I do recommend the guided tour because it is the only way to see some of the really cool things, like the ‘lungs’, but at the same time, our guide was really terrible. He didn’t really seem to know much at all. Wikipedia was more informative. I mean for the love of Todd — I’m at a scientific facility because I have an interest in science. I’m going to ask scientific questions, and I want information. When I ask why a particular experiment is being conducted, «To learn more» isn’t quite gonna cut it.

When you read their website it seems like you could go on a self-​guided visit, but it doesn’t feel that way.
With the tour, and only on the tour, can you see the lower habitat, the rain forest, desert, the lung and more. It seems like everybody’s visit is colored by whether or not the tour guide knows what they’re talking about. I adored my tour guide and he answered 95% of my questions.
So definitely take the tour first and then hit up the stuff you can do on your own like the water and life experiments and upper habitat. You can roam around by yourself on the outside of the facility and take a look at the beautiful buildings.
I buffered 4 hours for the visit and felt 4 hours was absolutely necessarily to enjoy the inside and outside of the building.
The café serves decent fare at affordable pricing and has seating inside and out.

I enjoyed the tour. With a discount it was a reasonable rate of $ 12 each. Our tour guide was not a scientist, but a filmmaker. He had a gift for gab but any science related questions from the 30 folks on the tour typically were deftly avoided.
This place is a failed experiment and will be bulldozed in the future to make way for more Senior Housing. Call before you head out there!

If you like science — this is a fun half-​day trip. If you don’t like science but like to see interesting things — this place is still cool. If you need an attraction to take out of town or out of state family and friends — this would be an excellent choice! Bring your camera and get there early. Check their website for the most current information.

Once upon a time, when bulbous shoulder pads were a trend of the not so distant past, a group of 8 souls entered the largest enclosed structure on Earth to resemble a futuristic Church of the Latter Day Saints. Under some controversy — the scientists hired to oversee the original 2-​year experiment were fired, making the entire undertaking seem more like a *cult* than a *scientific experiment* — the original goal of Biosphere 2 was to find out whether human beings could live in an absolute self-​sustaining environment (no they could not) without getting on each other’s nerves (no they did not) and without an emergency stash of Cheetos, or the world thinking it was some kind of highly-​expensive froo-​ha-​ha (good heavens, no and sadly, not really).
Almost 25 years later, Biosphere 2 is still a marvel. As the largest enclosed ecosystem ever created, Biosphere 2 houses a tropical forest, an ocean-​ish, a mangrove forest, and a desert, complete with a Boojum tree.
An impressive structure of metal and glass, Biosphere 2 boasts an almost 100% air tight structure with two massive «lungs» (inactive volume air chamber, according to the Biosphere 2 website) — that’s accessed by a tiny claustrophobic and drafty walkway not more than 5+ feet tall.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
We came here on a coupon, but it’s worth the regular-​priced $ 20/​person admission fee. For the price of admission you go on a 1.5 hour pit-​stop-​less tour, as many with sub-​standard, enraged bladders have pointed out in previous reviews. There’s not a lot of walking but there’s a lot of standing around in cold concrete areas or humid overgrown tropical forests. On the tour, you get to see important parts of the entire compound — where the participants conducted their farming and livestock raising, where the water purifying equipment is located, the bowels of the structure which houses the machine rooms, including the lungs, as well as the common areas (kitchen, dining room), as well as one dormitory kept intact from the first mission in 1991.
After entering the airlock doors to the main structure, we’re greeted with several souvenirs from missions past: a handwritten log book detailing the behaviors of the goats and other livestock. Another log book which painstakingly lists the stash of seed supply and which ones were planted and how the crops were doing. Further along the tour are pictures showing the original brave participants making the best of the soy beans and whatever other sad foodstuffs that comprised their diets for the two years of their mission. While everyone in the experiment was allowed a healthy vegetarian diet of 2200 calories a day, they ended up losing weight dangerously and had to subsist off of the «emergency stash» of food they’d brought in and had not grown themselves.
Since the original missions, Columbia University and now the University of Arizona have taken over the facility, conducting less dramatic experiments, such as the pathway of water through soil via their LEO contraption. Researchers were busy at work in various parts of the facility while we visited, and some even have converted previous dorms to their private offices.
Although Biosphere 2 attempts to cater to the young ‘uns through various posters explaining the ecosystem, the Ice Age, dinosaurs and their extinction, only adults will appreciate the movie poster showcasing a Chinese-​ized Peter Ustinov in «One of Our Dinosaur’s Missing» and native Minnesotans will wax nostalgic over a sign for «Hamm’s beer» found in the Ice Age exhibit, as we all know, Minnesota and the Ice Age go hand in hand.
The super young might find the tour a little boring (and you can only view the facilities through a guided tour), and this might not be something to do every year, but the outrageous thought that one could build a massive self-​sustaining enclosed ecosystem and 8 people could attempt to live in it for 2 years is well worth the visit.

I went on the tour yesterday, a Sunday, at 0930. I was the only one in my Group.
My Tour Guide was awesome, I can’t remember her name, I feel so bad.
It’s a Building Complex that’s so interesting as to how they made it and what its goals are ment to be. I got such a personal tour it was unbelievable. Their was another Tour Guide who came by and visited with us and he knew so much, he had been with the Complex since the beginning, again I’m bad with names…
You could get some ecological spinned propaganda probably, I could see that, but that’s what these people are all about, studying the environment. My Tour Guides, however, did not really give any information that seemed out of line. They were just Great!
You are gong to Tour a Building Complex, built specifically for studying the environment, Earth/​Bio 1, and to hear a little about the people who lived in it, during its sealed in experiments.
I found the Tour and Facility very interesting. You need to be a little Earth Sciences orientated and a little interested in Civil Engineering or you may not really really enjoy the Tour, but I think most people will find it pretty darn interesting. If you like plants and Greenhouses, the tour has quite a lot to see and experience.

An absolute must in Tucson! Very interesting and you learn many things!
It is a shame it is not getting enough funding or attention, so much could be done in a place like this!
It is truly a relic from the 80 – 90’s, so it makes it even more interesting, even if it means the place being old and run down, probably because of the maintenance costs which I’m sure are sky high.
Other than that go there! Great experience.

We went to visit family down in Arizona and they planned to take us to the Biosphere one of our days during our visit.
I had been living under a rock and had not heard of this place but it was really fascinating, in that, people lived in this area that was was about three miles big (eight people – scientists) for two years without leaving.
This experiment was done about twenty years ago and they learned quite a few things good and back. The environment was completely sealed even so far as the base (i.e., so even no ground water would contaminant the experiment).
Truly fascinating and some the the people involved have written books, which I think would be interesting to pick up and check out.
These folks grew their own food, had cattle and goats, etc. I cannot fathom being in there for that period of time.
Something interesting to check out. Worth the trip.
About $ 20 per person, seniors and military get a break on the entry fee.