That was the Biosphere II project and yes it was a failure on the level that they did not manage to keep it totally self contained for the length of the experiment. I believe they had to let in more air towards the end as oxygen got low and I believe their food supply ran rather low. Ultimately it was not really a failure if you consider that it was one of only 3 similar projects, the eden project in England (which has different objectives but is similar in nature.) and a project in Russia that predated Biosphere II. The name of that project escapes me (it wasn't biosphere I...that is earth according to the scientists behind the project.). Ecosystems are incredibly complex machines and trying to recreate several different ones in a 2 1/2 acre enclosure is a difficult task at best and creating it to sustain several humans for a prolonged period and still be completely self contained makes it much more difficult.

Just like any other experiment they may have failed to achieve their goal but what they learned will greatly improve the success of the next attempt.

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