Here’s my vision… a sealed container, larger than a basketball but smaller than a dishwasher. Inside, I want a complete ecosystem. I want water, air, plants, and preferably a small animal, like a fish, lizard, or even just insects. I want the system to live indefinitely on its own with no interference. That means no feeding, no cleaning, no adding or removing anything. I want to stick it in the sun, watch the plants grow and die, watch my animal eat, sleep, move, poop, have babies, live and die. I want water to evaporate, condense, be drank and peed. I want O2 to become CO2 and then back to O2 again.
Can it be done? What plants, animals, minerals, or other things would be best?
“Because the EcoSphere is a living thing we know it will die some day.” - that’s no good, a true and balanced system wouldn’t die. Cool anyways. I might have to get one.
IMHO Biosphere 2 was a successful failure, and in more ways a missed opportunity. I worked there for nearly seven years so I may be a little biased but I’ll see if I can shed some light on the OP.
One of the most serious problems with Biosphere 2 or pretty much any sealed ecosystem is that the ratio of living stuff to atmosphere is dramatically higher than on biosphere 1 (the earth). The consequence is that any cyclical changes to the atmosphere are so dramatic that they can threaten the survival of the life inside before they settle into equilibirium. In Bio2 the two biggest problems were excess CO[sub]2[/sub] caused in part by unusually high levels of cloud cover in Arizona during the first two years and oxygen depletion from soil microbes. I don’t know if either of those would have reached equilibirum but just before oxygen was injected the atmosphere was so depleted that some of the crew said a candle would not burn. The crew who were all fit, trim people reported being exhausted after the effort of climbing one flight of stairs.
kanicbird the stated goal of Biosphere 2 was to make a materially sealed ecosystem with only energy and information being exchanged. In that light we weren’t too worried about relativistic mass.
Nay, if your going to disregard the size restriction, the most famous attempt would be “Earth.” Which hasn’t failed yet, but the warranty’s up in a few billion years. By then, perhaps the experiment will be “our universe,” which buys us (or whoever) many billion more.
Everything dies eventually. Many of these eco-spheres or bottle biologies last for years and years. Hard to expect anything better.
How long do you want it to last?
IIRC, the “EcoSphere” isn’t large enough (or equipped properly) to allow the shrimp to reproduce. Even under ideal conditions, its “life span” is limited by that of the shrimp you put in.
[sup]overpopulating? Why not “they don’t multiply”?[/sup]