The earth is humanity’s greatest asset in its fight for survival, yet the universe has only equipped it with a finite set of natural resources that cannot be replenished. So the dire need to protect and save those supplies that are quickly depleting has become increasingly prevalent in recent history. The process of synergy has inspired scientists to work together to fortify sustainability over the past several decades. That process particularly influenced a group of synergists, including Dr. Mark Nelson and Linda Leigh, to design and construct the Biosphere 2 project in the early 1990s, which is highlighted in the new documentary, ‘Spaceship Earth.’
Unfortunately, the synergists’ scientific story that was so vital and prevalent in the American media nearly 30 years ago has since faded from collective memory. So director-producer Matt Wolf was determined to highlight how the forgotten history of the experiment is once again inspiring people to consider not only how they’re influencing the environment around them, but also how they should never dismiss their extensive impact on the sustainability of earth’s natural resources.
Neon is releasing ‘Spaceship Earth’ on Hulu and VOD, as well as in virtual cinemas and at participating drive-in theaters, today. The official distribution comes after the movie had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
‘Spaceship Earth’ tells the true adventure of eight visionaries who, in 1991, spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called Biosphere 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, as it chronicled the biospherians’ daily existence during a life-threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult. The documentary’s narrative offers a lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially re-imagine a new world.
Nelson and Leigh generously took the time recently to talk about appearing in ‘Spaceship Earth’ during individual exclusive interview over the phone. Among other things, the scientists discussed how they were drawn to participate in Biosphere 2 in part because they wanted to contribute to a socially innovative project that thrived on the goal of saving the earth and its resources. The synergists also both noted that they feel that it’s extremely important and timely to release the documentary during the current global COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, as it will remind viewers that they have a responsibility to respect their surroundings, and also make them think about how they can help improve humanity’s management of the earth.
Nelson, who was one of the eight original crew members of Biosphere 2 in 1991, and served as the Director of Earth and Space Applications for the project until 1994, initially discussed his interest in working in closed ecological system research. “I wanted to do something personally fulfilling, and contribute to a socially innovative project. By good fortune, I made contact with people who had just began working at the Synergia Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico,” he shared.
“When I came here, I learned that it wouldn’t only be ecological work; the program would be more balanced. There would also be work on enterprise and artistic expression. We would do theater, including classic and improvised plays,” he further divulged. “So it sounded like a perfect program.
“After we started working ecologically, we decided to form the Institute of Ecotechnics. We wanted to put into practice the development of systems that better harmonize the world’s economy and technology, while also upgrading the local ecosystems we were working in,” Nelson added. “After working on those projects for 20 years, as well as having international conferences with scientists and explores engineers, it prepared us to do something as seemingly impossible as Biosphere 2.”
Nelson then followed up on how he became involved in working on the self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem that was featured in Biosphere 2. “Well, we set up a joint venture called Space Biospheres Ventures. So in addition to looking at the overall development of the project, I was also the director of environmental and space applications for Biosphere 2. That led me to work with the Russians, who are the leaders in the field, as well environmentalists, because we needed top ecologists to contribute to the project’s design,” he noted.
“I then had an amazing experience. We built a test module, which was an engineering test bed, to see if we could seal something to be virtually air tight. We also tested several of the test sub-systems,” Nelson added. “We had a program that allowed everyone on staff to spend 24 hours in the test module…it allowed us to totally understand that we were totally connected to the system that was in there. It was such an amazing experience,” he gushed. “During that time, Biosphere 2 was no longer just an idea in my brain; my body also understood the connection we all have to the biosphere.”
After that initial development process, “we had about 13-15 people going through the training. We were learning all of the skills and systems that we would need to run Biosphere 2. I became a biospherian candidate, and had the great fortune of being selected to be part of the first crew,” Nelson also shared.
Leigh, who was responsible for coordinating the planning of the biosphere’s land sections, as well as collecting, storing, propagating and transferring more than 2,000 plant species, also shared how she became involved in working on the Biosphere 2 project. “I was working in Tucson, Arizona at the Nature Conservancy, and was looking for a particular plant species. While there, I met someone at the Biosphere 2 project, which was a wild moment. I was being very much of a loner in the field as I was out looking for these plants,” she confessed.
“The person I met said, ‘Linda, what you’re doing is great. You can try to save the world, but you can’t do it yourself,” Leigh recalled. “That was one of those moments that pulled me into the Biosphere 2 project, which to me, seemed like the most magnificent thing that people could start thinking about.” She was also drawn to “the magnetism of a group of people working so passionately towards a common goal.”
Once she signed on to take part in Biosphere 2, the botanist “did some of the work that involved selecting the species. I worked with a lot of other scientists who figured out how to build a food web from the ground up. We’re used to taking them apart, but with this project, we put them all back together. It was an interesting way to start thinking,” she admitted.
“I got to work with a lot of knowledgeable people, but many of them were only studying the one part of the biosphere they were interested in,” Leigh admitted. “They may have only been studying one species, so we then had to put them into one system. That’s what’s exciting to me-working with people, thinking about systems and in this case, putting them together.”
Following up on how he became involved in working on Biosphere 2, Nelson explained how he became attached to appear in ‘Spaceship Earth.’ “Well, we were a little leery about media coverage, as you can see in the film,” he pointed. “For awhile there, Biosphere 2 started off as a fairly quiet project in southern Arizona. But it did eventually hit a nerve around the world. Up until that point, most people didn’t even know what a biosphere was, let alone how to spell it.
“So every time a media company comes to us and says they want to do a project about us, we thought it would just follow the cliché, and declare the experiment a failure,” he divulged. “But everyone at Synergia Ranch saw (producer) Stacey Reiss’ amazing film, ‘The Eagle Huntress.’ That project told us that she’s this documentary producer who has exceptional talent.”
The first conversations that Nelson had with Wolf involved the scientist sending the director “a PDF of one of the books I have written about Biosphere 2, ‘Pushing Our Limits.’ He read the book, and was pretty conversant about the subtleties, complexities and real accomplishments of Biosphere 2,” he shared.
“We have been documenting and archiving all the activities of the Institute (of Ecotechnics) for 50 years now. So when Matt and Stacey saw that trove of material, they said, ‘Oh my gosh. We can not only tell this story, but we also have incredible visual and audio archives to draw on to tell a really compelling film,'” Nelson added.
“They came out (to the Synergia Ranch) a few times. The more I spoke to the both of them, the more I trusted their intent” for the documentary, he added. “They did an amazing, splendid job in making a dramatic film, and bringing it to the world.”
Leigh also discussed how she began involved in appearing in ‘Spaceship Earth,’ stating that “Matt approached me about the documentary. At first, it wasn’t necessarily about me being in it; instead, it was about what I thought about it. He also asked if he would be able to pull people in and get them to talk about it,” she shared. “He also asked if I’d be able to get footage of the historical elements. We chatted about those things a few times, so I was very hopeful about the project. He sent me a write-up of what he thought it would be like.
“So I was really impressed with how Matt approached Biosphere 2 with a very open-mind. When he approached me, I thought, yes, this really needs to be done. It would have been great if the film was done a long time ago, in order to have more awareness about it,” Leigh admitted. “So I was behind him a hundred percent in making the film.
“Matt then asked me if I would be interviewed for the film, and I said, ‘Sure, I’d be happy to do that. So I did a couple interviews here in Tucson, and I took him through the biosphere. His reaction to the biosphere was just marvelous; he just fell in love with the place,” she shared.
“After that, I was just waiting to see if it would come about. He finally said, ‘We’ve finally got a film; would you come to Sundance and talk about it. We’re going to do a screening there, and I’d really love for you to be there for the premiere,” Leigh revealed. “That was so exciting! Getting to see how he showed how much work was put into Biosphere 2 was magnificent.
“Looking at what everyone said about, and their reactions towards, the film after the premiere, was fantastic. Now people are going to be able to see around the world on smaller screens first,” she noted. “But when we’re all back in theaters, I can only hope that people will be able to see the movie on the big screen. Besides visiting it yourself, that’s the only way you can really get an idea of the scale of the place.”
Nelson added that he “can’t think of a better time to release the movie, with everyone on semi-lockdown, like we were in Biosphere 2. Also, with global climate change, and the growing appreciation that business as usual is killing our biosphere, this film is so timely.”
In light of the current global Covid-19 pandemic, people are currently living like biospherians in certain ways. People will reenter a new world when the quarantine is over. Nelson further shared his thoughts about how the current quarantine and pandemic has given society a visceral sense of the fragility of the world, and they need to change certain aspects of their lives in order to protect it.
The current pandemic is “certainly starting another dialogue. I think the lessons and legacy of Biosphere 2 shown in this film can help change people’s actions and thoughts. But one movie isn’t going to change everything,” Nelson pointed out. “Biosphere 2 was a pretty complex story.
“Even before the internet, we were on the front page of newspapers, and at the top of the news broadcasts for two or three years. We reached about a billion people, and brought them new concepts that were irresistible,” he further noted. “These concepts were in a small enough package that people could actually visualize it.”
Nelson added that the Biosphere 2 project “is so timely now because we always joke that we were 50 years ahead of our time. Waking up to our one predicament…is allowing us to realize that we’re on this amazing planet. We have a responsibility to engage in it, and respect our surround. I think this film can emphasize that message, and make it realer for people.”
Leigh also agreed with Nelson, saying that this year “is a pretty good time to see the film, with the situation we’re in, including a lot of people thinking about how we can improve our management of the earth.”
She also pondered if “we’ll have another chance to repair our biosphere. Can we change our behavior, now that we know the impact that humans have on the earth? We’ve seen that in the data, including how much cleaner the water and air are through the satellite images. We really want this to be a lesson learned. So once we’re back in our regular lives, how can we behave in a way that keeps that going?”