Noah's Ark -- the Sequel

By EDWIN M. REINGOLD ORACLE

In the high Sonoran desert north of Tucson, amid blooming cacti, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, a remarkable building is taking shape. Covering 1.3 hectares (3.15 acres) and sheltered under a gleaming, 26-meter- high (85-ft.) cathedral-like latticework roof of steel tubing and glass, Biosphere II is both an architectural wonder and a scientific tour de force. In December eight people will be sealed inside for two years, getting nothing from the outside but information, electricity and sunshine. Along with 3,800 plants and dozens of species of invertebrates, mammals and other living organisms, they will form the largest self-sustaining ecosystem ever built.

The human inhabitants of this mini-world -- four men and four women, all single -- were named last week. Ranging in age from 26 to 66, they come from the U.S., West Germany, Britain and Belgium, and include a physician, a botanist, a marine biologist and experts on engineering and agriculture. Says crew leader Bernd Zabel, who was general manager for Biosphere's construction: "The closer the day comes, the more excited I get."

The $60 million experiment, financed by a group of venture capitalists led by Texas billionaire Edward Bass, has two basic purposes. One is to test ideas for building outposts on other planets, where long stays would be common and resupply impossible. But Biosphere II is more than just the prototype of a space colony. It is a means of learning more about how the earth -- "Biosphere I," in project jargon -- sustains itself through the recycling of water, air and nutrients. Along the way, Space Biospheres Ventures, the company sponsoring the experiment, hopes to find ideas it can market, from air-purification technologies to new varieties of crops.

Scientists have been developing the physical plant of Biosphere II for six years, using techniques that have enabled modern zoos and botanical gardens to put diverse habitats together in relatively narrow confines. At the same time, they have searched the world for representative flora and fauna that can re- create five different miniature biomes, or ecosystems: rain forest, savanna, desert, ocean and marsh.

The results are spectacular. The structure, built on a slope, is dominated by a soaring Amazonian rain forest, lush with 300 species of plants. At its periphery, tree ferns and bromeliads flank a stream that leads to a mountainside flood-plain forest and an open vista of tropical savanna. There, plants from Africa, Australia and South America bask in a less humid atmosphere, where bees and hummingbirds help pollinate plants and a colony of termites aids in the decomposition of dying material.

A transition zone of thorn scrub from Madagascar and Mexico leads onto a Baja California desert biome. The stream, meanwhile, meanders to the saltwater marsh (transported in sections from the Florida Everglades) that gives onto the 10.6-meter-deep (35-ft.) ocean with its own coral reef and waves that can rise as high as 1.2 meters (4 ft.). Mangroves in the marsh are host to frogs, turtles and crabs, and the ocean includes 1,000 species of plants and animals.

The wilderness biomes, stretching along the horizontal axis of the T-shaped structure, will be nice places to visit, but the eight Biosphereans will not live there. Their home is in the stem of the T, where they will grow their food in a 0.2-hectare (0.5-acre) area. Although the experiment will not start for a few months, the farm is already producing crops. Rice grows in flooded paddies that are shared with tilapias -- African fish -- which eat algae and . water ferns and in turn fertilize the water with their waste. Papaya and bananas are ripening in moist heat and late-summer sun. Sorghum, amaranth, dill, oregano, soybeans, corn, tomatoes, onions and other crops are all growing in compost without pesticides and with only natural predators, such as spiders, wasps, lacewings and ladybugs, to keep voracious insects away.

The absence of pesticides and the emphasis on natural fertilizer are designed not only to keep the experiment as untainted as possible, but also to protect the health of the human consumers; because all the air and water in Biosphere II is continually recycled and regenerated, it is important that no poisons be introduced into the system anywhere. Otherwise, as a project scientist puts it, "we'd be drinking pollutants in a couple of days."

Isolated as they are, the Biosphereans will at least have reasonably comfortable accommodations. Each person has a 34-sq.-meter (360-sq.-ft.) apartment, with a common dining hall and recreation facilities. They will have computer and voice communications with the outside world and their own Mission Control. In case of emergency, someone can be removed through an air lock without interfering with the functioning of the closed environment.

Margret Augustine, the project's director and co-architect, estimates that the Biosphereans will spend about four hours a day doing scientific work and four hours on food production. Eggs will be collected from the Biospherean chickens, milk from the Biospherean goats, fish from the rice paddies or the ocean, meat from a plentiful supply of Vietnamese potbellied pigs. Surveying the desert biome he helped build from a cliffside in the savannah area, botanist Tony Burgess of the University of Arizona admits, "I thought I knew a lot about ecology when I started this. But this has been the most humbling experience of my life. Mies van der Rohe was right when he said, 'God is in the details.' "

It has been a formidable task to organize these details -- assembling plant strains, microbes, insects, and putting them together with bats, bush babies, lizards, tortoises and other life forms. No one expects all the species to survive; in fact, Burgess believes that between a quarter and a third will become extinct during the two-year period. But that is part of the experiment as well. Scientists do not necessarily know which plants and animals are best suited to self-contained habitats, and trial and error is the only way to be sure. Says Carl Hodges, director of the Environmental Research Laboratory of the University of Arizona, who directed the research and development for Biosphere's farm: "This is not an academic exercise meant to generate Ph.D.s." If it works, it will instead be hailed as one of the most concrete contributions ever made to understanding the workings of Biosphere I.