Bioshock: Feasibility of Artificial environments

Behold Rapture, a city under the sea, much like that envisioned in many different sci-fiction shows of the past. Here, the city is built upon the energy of hydrothermal vents found deep in the sea. And lo and behold, this city is indeed a technological as well as aesthetic beauty. Makes you wonder whether or not we could build such a structure with our ingenuity- to be able to conquer an environment that we were never meant to.

Figure 1: Picture of Rapture. The city under the sea in the video game bioshock.

If anything, we know that living away from our natural environment is probably a gargantuan if the results of the artificial environment "Biosphere 2" was any indication of the importance our natural ecosystem has on the sustainability of the lives of humans.

The world's first and largest artificial environment was constructed in 1987 at the St. Catalina Mountains in Arizona. Dubbed "Biosphere 2" in recognition of it being the only other known environment to support life as far as we are aware, it was built to try exlore the feasilbility of building artificial environments in space as well as to explore whether or not organisms could survive and thrive under such conditions.

Within "Biosphere 2" all supports thought to be necessary for live to thrives was present- from plants to animals. There were even unique environments build within "Biosphere 2" itself such as desserts and oceans".

Various abiotic aspects of the environment could be controlled within "biosphere 2". Factors such as temperatures, humidity (everything that could affect the ability for different species to thrive).

During the second mission, it was noted that the oxygen amount of within Biosphere 2 was rapidly decreasing. This led to many problems to the health of the people inside Biosphere 2 as the oxygen level dropped to 14%.

It was later found that the reason for the rapid drop of oxygen within the environment was a due to the imbalance between the rate of photosynthesis and respiration within the enclosed system.

Learning points from the experiment

I found the idea of an artificial environment really cool but the problems faced by the crew of "Biosphere 2" showed us how suited for life the earth really is. The earth is in a stable state precisely because of the environment and all the natural processes such as carbon sequestration of the Ocean. If any one thing goes wrong than it could lead to many problems as observed in Biosphere 2.

As we known in the past, climate change from natural processes have led to a series of natural extinction events. For example, one of the reason suggested for the Permian-Triassic extinction event was due to the environment being notably anoxic. The huge change the the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere led to death of many organisms on earth.

Knowing the fragility of the environment shows us the importance of taking care of our environment. If anything, indicators of the six mass extinction event show us an even greater need to take care of our environment.