NEWS TIP SHEET
Former Biosphere 2 Inhabitants to Speak at CU-Boulder March 17
Two American scientists who spent two years inside the Biosphere 2 dome near Oracle, Ariz., from 1991 to 1993 will speak about their experiences during a presentation at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Monday, March 17.
The talk will be held from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in room ECCR 1B40 of the engineering center. Sponsored by Bioserve Space Technologies Center and the aerospace engineering department, the event is free and open to the public.
Biosphere 2 was built to test the feasibility of a self-contained environment similar to those that might someday be built on other planets or on the deep ocean floor. The domed, 2.5 acre site contained seven ecological zones, a small ocean and mountain, a farm and a five-story living area.
The two scientists, Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, will talk about their personal experiences and what they learned from their scientific experiments with six other scientists from 1991 to 1993.
MacCallum coordinated and operated the electronic and air systems, performed soil and tissue analysis and conducted research on human toxicology and ecology. Poynter coordinated the dome聮s agriculture and care of domestic animals, including crop selection, pest control and food processing, canning and freezing.
MacCallum and Poynter now work for Paragon Space Development Corp. of Tucson, Ariz., which develops experiments for space flight in microgravity environments. They recently used hardware built by Bioserve faculty and students to fly two aquatic biosphere experiments aboard the space shuttle Endeavour and on the Russian space Station Mir. For more information contact Bioserve聮s Carla Goulart at 492-3607 or Jim Scott in the CU-Boulder public relations office at 492-3114.