Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Would you agree to be locked in a bubble with seven other people for two years?

  • (hesitantly) Llllet's talk about that.

  • ♪ (theme music) ♪

  • - Good Mythical Morning. -You don't have to be a fan of watching

  • Captain Planet take on eco-villians like Sly Sludge or Looten Plunder --

  • - yes, that was one of the guy's names: - Of course it was.

  • - Looten Plunder -- - Yeah-yeah-yeah.

  • to know that we humans don't do a very good job of taking care of our home,

  • the earth. So much so that people like Stephen Hawking -- you've probably heard

  • - of him -- has said that… - I've heard of him.

  • in order to survive, we're going to need to colonize other planets

  • at some point, because, you know, time is running short on this one. We gotta

  • get to other planets. And why don't we practice by going and setting up

  • something on Mars. Not like Mars is the future, but if you're gonna get to the

  • next planet, you gotta get to the first planet that you can get to. That's Mars.

  • NASA said, "You know what? We're gonna have a manned mission to Mars by 2035."

  • - And SpaceX, that's Elon Musk's… - Yeah.

  • company, he says, "We're gonna go there by the 2020s."

  • I'm not talking about the television show, guys. I'm talking about the years,

  • the 2020s. We're gonna go there because of the guy who makes the Tesla cars.

  • He can make his rocket come down...

  • - We're not going in the Tesla cars. - …in the same spot that it went up.

  • - It's in a rocket. - It goes like this: shhhhhk.

  • - It's pretty awesome. - (clicks tongue)

  • There is a problem, though. Mars is very, very, very, very, cold:

  • -225 degrees Fahrenheit. You don't wanna be caught out in the open in that

  • situation without a toboggan. Or without being in some sort of enclosed space.

  • Or as my family members call it, a TOE-boggan.

  • - A TOE-boggan. - Not to go on your toes, though.

  • You need a lot more than a TOE-boggan to live on Mars, and if you're a human,

  • you need to be enclosed in some sort of space. So people had been thinking

  • about this, creating some sort of biosphere, if you will...

  • - Yes. - …an enclosed ecosystem to help

  • us learn how to get ready to go to other planets. And you may remember --

  • I do remember this -- back in 1991, when we were in middle school, eight people

  • in Arizona, went into something called Biosphere 2. Here's a little refresher.

  • - Really. - (male voice) In 1991, eight researchers

  • were sealed inside a futuristic glass complex near Oracle, Arizona, to spend

  • two years living in a self-sustaining habitat.

  • (female voice) We hope by building Biosphere 2 that we build the first

  • prototype for total a total life system that you'd be able to take to

  • - another planet. - I take my last breaths of this

  • atmosphere, knowing that I will take breaths from a different atmosphere

  • - from all of you for two years. - It's very dramatic.

  • "I take my last breathand my last use of hair product."

  • Did she use that hair product on the inside, too?

  • - I don't know. I liked that hair, though. - That was some bouffant hair.

  • - I got no problems at all with that. - I do not remember that...

  • - I could make that a biosphere. - nor do I -- I do not remember

  • - Biosphere 1, either. - Yeah, well, the reason you don't

  • remember Biosphere 1 -- that's what I was thinking -- is because Biosphere 1 is

  • - the earth. There was no Biosphere 1 - Oh.

  • that was an enclosed thing. They're like, "Biosphere 1 is the earth."

  • - I'm currently experiencing it. - So, yeah, we are in Biosphere 1

  • - right now, Link. It's awesome. - So Biosphere 2 is kinda like

  • like, a dive suitfor eight people and crops.

  • Exactly. And a few animals. Here's what it had. It was basically a huge greenhouse

  • - over three acres… - (Link) Or a greenhouse.

  • Big greenhouse, bigger than a suit, yeah. Greenhouse, three acres, over nine

  • stories tall. It had a rainforest, a desert, an ocean, a swamp...

  • - What? - …a savannah and a small farm that

  • had five goats, two pigs, and twenty-three chickens.

  • - Are you sure this isn't just a zoo? - No, this is Biosphere 2.

  • - It's a beautiful facility. - It's a zoo no one can go to.

  • Well, these eight people went. But the question is, why are we not all playing

  • - kickball on Mars now? - Are they stiWell, or are they

  • - still in there? - No, they're not, because Biosphere 2

  • - was a huge failure. - Really.

  • Here's what happened. First of all, just to give you an idea of how big of a

  • failure it was, Time magazine says this is one of the 100 worst ideas of the

  • - 20th century. Biosphere 2. - Well, it doesn't sound like it.

  • It inspired another thing that's on my list of the 100 worst ideas of the 20th

  • century: the 1996 Pauly Shore film, Biodome.

  • - ♪ (lively orchestral score) ♪ - Just because we're stuck in a bubble,

  • - doesn't mean we can't cause any trouble. - (unison) On threeThree!

  • (yelling) (cheering)

  • ♪ (upbeat music) ♪

  • - Looks like a lot of fun. - So lemme get this straight...

  • - "Just because we're stuck in a bubble," - …Biosphere 2.

  • (unison) "Doesn't mean we can't cause any trouble."

  • - Bungee jump! - (laughing)

  • Trouble with the bungee cord! So they took Biosphere 2, and it was a miserable

  • failure, so they just use it as a movie set?

  • Yeah. No, they didn't. They built their own movie set. They didn't go in the

  • Biosphere 2, becauseand I'll tell you why.

  • The producers missed an opportunity with that one.

  • - Biosphere 2… - One was already built.

  • cost 150 million dollars to build. You're like, "Who financed this?

  • The government?" No. A guy named Ed Bass, not edbassmaster. This was not

  • - him pre-YouTube career. - Ed "Base?"

  • This is an eccentric heir to a Texas oil fortune named Ed Bass.

  • And he just had a bunch of money, and he was into environmental ideas, and he

  • thought that this would be good one. And he also had a guy who was a really

  • good friend and mentor of his named John Allen, who was the designer.

  • It was John Allen's idea, financed by Ed Bass.

  • - Bass' money. - So John being involved was probably

  • the problem. This guy was a very weird dude, kind of a jack of all trades.

  • He had a background in engineering and metallurgy, working with metals.

  • But he was also the founder of a theater company -- a theater commune --

  • - What? - called Synergia Ranch.

  • - (laughing) Okay. - So what did he do?

  • So what did he do when he came up with this idea for Biosphere 2?

  • He just wanted to have a theater. He wanted to make his own theater.

  • - Where did he find the eight participants? - Actors.

  • (Rhett) He found them in the theater commune.

  • - (Link) Oh, dude. - Most of them. Most of the people

  • who went into Biosphere 2 were not scientists or doctors, they were theater

  • commune people from Synergia Ranch. And some of them hadn't even gone

  • - to college. - Hey, that's okay.

  • But it was supposed to be like a scientific endeavor. And I remember

  • it on the news. They were talking about this. You know, I was a kid, I didn't

  • - really know what the deal was. - That explains why that woman was so

  • - dramatic when she was giving her speech! - She's like, "I take these last breaths…"

  • It was a monologue!

  • - From the commune! - Yeah, it was very Shakespearean.

  • - (laughing) Yeah! - Well, anyway, that woman that

  • you saw, Jane Poynter, she was the root of some of the trouble.

  • 12 days into them being sealed up into this thing, she cut off the tip of

  • her finger in a rice thresher. I don't know what a rice thresher is.

  • They probably used it in one of their plays that they put on inside

  • - (through laughter) of the Biosphere. - You gotta have a theater degree

  • to know how to use a rice thresher. (laughing)

  • But anyway, she had to go outside of the biosphere to get medical attention.

  • - Well, all they had to… - So 12 days in, BOOM, they break

  • - the seal! They break the seal! - Why didn't she just poke her finger out?

  • Well, she went out. She got medical attention, so a lot of people are like,

  • "Okay, this thing's ruined. She's out." And of course the news covered this,

  • 'cause the news was, like, still hanging around. And then she went back in with

  • two duffel bags. And everybody was like, "Oh, she's taking in supplies!"

  • - (snaps) Extra fingers. - 'Cause the whole idea

  • - (crew laughing offscreen) - was that this was supposed to be

  • self-sustaining. You weren't supposed to get any help, 'cause on Mars, you ain't

  • gonna get help. Like, they don't even have oxygen in this thing. It's supposed

  • - to generate all its own atmosphere. - Right.

  • So opening the seal ruins everything. But she says, "Oh, there's just drawings

  • inside of the duffel bags," is what she said. Two duffel bags worth of

  • drawings, and maybe scripts for future plays, were in these duffel bags.

  • - (laughing) Wow. - But they didn't take off their

  • Deep Space 9 jumpsuits and call it quits. They continued on, and things got worse.

  • Too much cloud cover. It was like an El Niño year, and apparently Arizona

  • had more clouds than expected, so the crops really didn't grow.

  • - Everything got real brown in there? - Then the livestock ate up most of

  • the food, because, you know, pigs and goats and stuff need food. So they

  • kill the goats, kill the pigs, half of the chickens, and begin eating the grain

  • for the animals for themselves. This was a little bit of a diet. One guy who wasn't

  • - really that overweight lost 54 pounds. - Ouch.

  • This reminds me of my science project in junior high, that I got

  • - honorable mention. - Biosphere?

  • I didn't call it "Biosphere." I called it "What Is the Balance of Nature?"

  • and it was these different jars that had water and algae and slugs.

  • - And this is pretty much exactly that. - And it was sealed. And they all turned

  • really brown, and when you opened it up, it smelled like death in there.

  • Did you put eight people from a theater commune in there?

  • - No. (laughing) - That was where you went wrong.

  • Now, if all that stuff wasn't bad enough, the oxygen levels -- this place was

  • supposed to have a normal oxygen level, and it did at one point. It had about 21%.

  • But it began to drop, and it went down to 14%. You don't have to know anything

  • about the death zone around the top of Everest to know that when you get

  • into a low-oxygen environment, weird stuff starts happening. Sleep apnea:

  • they would wake up in the middle of the night basing for breath because they

  • couldn't get enough oxygen when they were sleeping. It made 'em crazy.

  • It made 'em into kleptomaniacs and hoarders, and they started stealing

  • from one another inside of the biosphere. Then Jane Poynter...

  • - Pointershe lost the tip of her - Good old Jane.

  • - finger. I'm realizing that right now. - (laughing)

  • - That's nice. - She had a time travel experiment --

  • (laughing) experience. She hallucinated while she was in the sweet potato field.

  • Yes, there was one of those. And she went into a time machine. She came out on

  • the other side. She had a conversation with her older brother -- an argument

  • with him. Key note: her older brother was not actually in the biosphere,

  • - so it was a hallucination. - He was in the duffel bag.

  • So, here's what the -- her brother was in the duffel bag! That's what it

  • was. Here's what ended up happening. Things get so desperate, they start

  • pumping oxygen into the thing. They operate a CO2 scrubber, which is what

  • - you use on a submarine to get oxygen in, - Okay.

  • and get CO2 out, which is a complete violation of the whole thing!

  • So basically the whole thing was just kaput at that point, but they stayed

  • in there. They quit talking to one another.

  • - I don't think… - There were several of them who

  • wouldn't talk to one another, and then after two years, they finally come out,

  • put on a smiley face for the news, and just declare it a victory. But

  • everybody know by that time it was just a failure.

  • But, if they would have had cameras everywhere, and they would have

  • - televised it as a reality show, - Yeah.

  • everyone... it would've been seen as a success.

  • - It would have, yes. - Based on ratings.

  • - Which is a defunct way to measure… - Right. It was ahead of its time.

  • - It should've been a reality show. - …way to measure tele --

  • You can't measure the success of anything using ratings anymore. It's a broken

  • - system. Let's talk at length about that. - To end on a good note, Link,

  • you can go there today. Biosphere 2, it's still a thing.

  • - Really?! - It's owned by the University of

  • Arizona. Now it's just the world's largest earth science research center.

  • They're actually getting some pretty cool stuff there done, and you can

  • - take a tour! It's in Oracle, Arizona. - Is Jane still in there?

  • - Jane is not there. And I think that - Fingerless Jane.

  • two of the Biosphereans fell in love. I think Jane was one of them.

  • - I'm not sure exactly who that was. - Oh, if it can be done, Jane did it.

  • - Trust me. - They put a ring right on that finger.

  • - (laughing) - It was very easy to get on there,

  • - becauseshe didn't have a tip. - Didn't have as far to go.

  • (laughing) 'Cause as you know, the tip is reason why it's hard to get rings on

  • - fingers. - Meet us a Biosphere 2. We'll be

  • - there, uhNo we won't. - (laughing)

  • - Maybe some day. - Thanks for liking and commenting

  • - on this video. - You know what time it is.

  • (male voice) I'm Nick Mullins, host of Mr. BNL, and we are at Mr. BNL,

  • and these are the wonderful people of Bedford, Indiana.

  • - (crowd cheering) - And it is time to spin The Wheel...

  • - (crowd yelling) Of Mythicality! - You should be following us

  • on Twitter, @rhettandlink, because we've got hip tips. Things like, "You should

  • always tuck your shirt into your underpants."

  • (laughing) See how funny that was? Click through to Good Mythical More, where

  • we discuss out personal intersections with biospheres, i.e. would we live in

  • - a biosphere? Like, you know... - Intersections?

  • - Wow, we're gonna intersect. - How does it intersect out lives

  • - personally, Rhett? - "Rhett won't share."

  • Hey, man. Can I have some of that drink in your cup?

  • - You've got your own. - I know, but I'm done with it.

  • (swallows) therefore, can I have some of yours?

  • - No. That's mine. That's mine. - What aboutuh, your shirt?

  • - You willing to share your shirt? - No, it's on my body. It covers me.

  • Umwhat are you willing to share?

  • (smacks lips) Advice.

  • [Captioned by Kevin: GMM Captioning Team]

Would you agree to be locked in a bubble with seven other people for two years?

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it