Biospherians, in glass house, threw some verbal stones, author reveals

But she doesn't burn a lot of ink taking credit for scientific accomplishments at Biosphere 2 in her recent book — "The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2" (Thunder's Mouth Press, $26.95.)

In an interview last week the first thing she brought up was work done after the breakup of Biosphere 2 guru John Allen's team.

"Under Columbia (University)," Poynter said, "they did the first experiment that quantified the effects of (atmospheric) CO2 levels on coral growth. They showed it didn't take much of a change in CO2 to affect coral growth."

Not that there wasn't plenty of science to chew over.

There were seven "biomes," minihabitats mimicking Earth zones: the human habitat and agricultural areas, and five wilderness biomes — rain forest, savannah, desert, marsh and ocean.

The one they didn't count, the atmosphere, was ultimately the one that most threatened the project.

Poynter talks about the discovery that the enclosure's atmospheric oxygen content had inexplicably plunged and carbon dioxide was rising.

It was treated, by most of the media, as near-scandal — a sign of failure.

Looking back on that moment, Poynter said the biospherians had a completely different take on the problem.

"Now we've really got something to test this apparatus," was Poynter's recollection of the internal reaction to the atmospheric-gas imbalances.

It also proved, she said, that Biosphere 2 was tightly sealed.

Poynter, though she had no formal science background, was in charge of insects. Sometimes it seemed the insects were in charge. The place swarmed with ants. Poynter recounts kitchen counters seething with cockroaches whenever humans weren't around to drive them off.

But bees were crucial for pollination of crops, termites for recycling organic matter and ladybugs for aphid control.

Much of the book is devoted to the human dynamics that split the eight-member crew and threatened the project just months after the door slammed shut in September 1991.

"I was best friends with Laser and Gaie (Mark VanThillo and Abigail Alling) when I went in, and they ended up on the other side of a two-party system."

Just six months into the two-year, self-sustaining stay in the sealed 3-acre glass miniworld, the group was split like two families of cranky house cats suddenly forced to live in the same studio apartment.

Poynter fondly recalls close-quarter living with members of Allen's cultish, post-'60s entourage aboard the group's ship and at its Australian outback ranch. They assumed the experiences would prepare them for lockdown in Biosphere 2.

"Isolated-environment psychology says with training you can handle things, suppress the dark" human urges. But, she said, "after four to six months, all that comes to the surface."

Poynter says Biosphere 2 was to serve as a test ground for space colonization, a prototype of a self-sustaining human encampment that would someday be built on Mars — one that could grow its own food and recycle its air, water and waste. Second, it was to serve as an ecological experiment for Earth, "a world in a test tube."

While the book is more tell-some than tell-all, what comes through clearly is that neither she nor the others were prepared to be more than zookeepers and gardeners in that test tube.

With the renewed interest in manned missions to Mars, she says, "They better have that figured out."

They complained about the lack of emphasis on science in press coverage during the two years, but Biosphere 2's management did little to further the dignity and scientific mood of the project.

Perceptions of the hyped experiment's being strictly about science were immediately clouded by the Star Trek-y uniforms the biospherians wore when they marched into the greenhouse, and the constant borrowing of NASA jargon.

And then there was the titillation potential of the Ark-like eight-member team. Four men and four women — nudge, nudge — made it easy for the media to focus on something other than science inside.

"Four and four, it never really crossed my mind," Poynter said of the scuttlebutt about the pairing off and spawning that might be going on inside Biosphere 2.

She and Taber MacCallum —"We've been together 20 years, married 13," she said — were already an item when the door slammed shut.

In some cases, it wasn't just a matter of the media having dirty minds.

"We gave you lots of ammo, fodder," said Poynter. "Take when I came out for surgery," said Poynter, referring to ducking out briefly for treatment when she lopped off a finger in a grain thresher.

When she went back in, Poynter recalled, "someone handed me a duffel bag; it contained a plant and a computer board."

Innocent enough, but in hindsight, by not showing what was in the bag, she said, it led to speculation that she was bringing in food.

And that was only 12 days into "the mission."

"We were very naive in how we handled the media," said Poynter.

MacCallum, said Poynter, is the only biospherian she still sees.

Dr. Roy Walford, the biospherian who championed a low-calorie diet as a means to longevity, died in 2004 of Lou Gehrig's disease at age 79.

Poynter said her interviews for the book with the other five former Biosphere 2 inhabitants were civil.

But she said intensely bitter relations between the biospherians and with management outside during the experiment taught her that "this is no way to run a railroad."

It also led her and MacCallum to hatch the idea that led to their current venture, Paragon Space Development Corp., a Tucson company that has designed experiments for NASA and the international space station and is branching into green building technologies.