This woman spent 2 years inside Biosphere 2 — & emerged with her sights on space

[Buster's Uncle]

Remember Biosphere 2? This woman spent two years inside the experiment — and emerged with her sights on space
American City Business Journals
Hilary Burns, Bizwomen Reporter  Feb 17, 2015, 3:38pm EST Updated: Feb 17, 2015, 5:31pm EST



Jane Poynter, CEO of World View, in Biosphere 2.  Brendan Moore



The stench was overwhelming.

Jane Poynter helped design and then lived in a 3-acre dome called Biosphere 2, completely sealed off from the rest of the world, for two years and 20 minutes. Walking back into society was a shock.

"I run over to say hello to all of these people and reel back," Poynter said in an interview with Bizwomen. "We all stink from all the chemicals we put on our bodies. It wasn't that we didn't have shampoo or toothpaste [in Biosphere 2], but it was all very organic, no perfume, no hairspray. Our noses were hyper-sensitive to it."

Poynter was one of eight people to participate in a two-year experiment to see if humans could survive in a manmade replica of Earth back in the early 1990s. Biosphere 2 had its share of problems, and the jury's still out on whether the project was a success. Discover magazine called it "the most exciting scientific project to be undertaken in the U.S. since President Kennedy launched us toward the moon." Time, on the other hand, called it one of the 100 worst ideas of the century.

But to Poynter, who is based in Tucson, Ariz., it was an experience that forever changed the way she thinks about our planet. She said Biosphere 2 sparked the ideas for two companies she has founded since her days in the dome. She has since led advancements and research in space travel (if she could go to Mars tomorrow, she would pack her bags), and her team was responsible for Google exec Alan Eustace's epic free fall from 135,908 feet. Her unconventional career has stretched (literally) around the world, and now? She wants to float people in balloons to the edge of space.

"Biosphere 2 changed my perspective in many, many ways," Poynter said. "One of them was that I really saw the possibility as a species going beyond the planet, exploring the other planets and bodies around us for real and to stay there."


Turning orange

Inside the steel walls of Biosphere 2 was a miniature rain forest, marsh, beach, savannah, ocean and desert. The four men and four women living inside harvested food and cared for their little world. Their skin turned orange from eating so many sweet potatoes.

Day-to-day life was mundane, but the psychological effects of living in isolation with seven other humans were worse. Besides phone calls, the crew inside the dome had no physical contact with friends and family.

"I was in my 20s, so you're at that stage where you're invincible anyway," Poynter said when asked how she prepared to live in Biosphere 2. "Also I was so focused on the project and doing a great job that it never occurred to me to think it wasn't all going to be roses. I was very naïve about what it was going to be like to be enclosed in Biosphere 2."

It sounds like a reality show — and in essence, it was. (It was also the inspiration for a very bad Pauly Shore comedy from 1996). Curious spectators would watch the eight participants through the glass like zoo animals, and cameras followed the every move of a very small group of people living in isolation for an extended amount of time. Poynter says there was no violence, but there were deep rifts and disagreements. (A bright spot: Despite the hostility and tension, Poynter married a fellow biosphere-ian.)

"On one hand, I was incredibly excited," Poynter said. "It was one of the most exciting, forward-thinking projects of its time, and I was incredibly honored to be part of it. Every day we pretended we were living on Mars on Earth. On the other hand, it was very monotonous harvesting sweet potatoes and feeding goats. You get as creative as you can with meals. Life revolves around food in an environment like that. It was a lot of physical work taking care of a whole world."


Reaching space

While she was in the dome, Poynter had a lot of time to think, which led to her two future business plans. She launched the first company, Paragon Space Development Corp., with her husband to aid private efforts to bring people to Mars.

Then Poynter launched her second company, called World View, in 2012 to make space travel more accessible. The company will offer people the chance to fly to the edge of space in a balloon.

Poynter said World View is still doing test flights and won't bring people along for the ride for another two or three years, but tickets are already being sold (they go for $75,000). The trip will take five hours to float to more than 100,000 feet above the Earth to see the planet from a view typically reserved for astronauts.

"Seeing Earth from space for the first time, you really see with your own eyes that this planet, everyone on it is on this planet together, traveling through a vacuum," Poynter said. "In Biosphere 2, I would be incredibly cognizant of the fact that every plant was providing me with every breath of oxygen, and my breath was providing the plants with CO2. We were completely embedded in the biosphere."

The idea has been around for a while. NASA has used large balloons to take telescopes up to space, for example. But Poynter wants to take it one step further in bringing people along for the ride.

"How do we make space more accessible? It's not scary. It's safe and easy for us all to do," she said.


Science fiction in reality

People willing to pay the ticket price will be floated up in a capsule under a balloon complete with wi-fi, an onboard bar and lavatory. They'll float up close to the point where Google Executive Alan Eustace fell in free fall from the edge of space.

Poynter and her team (that now includes a retired NASA astronaut, a former NASA associate administrator for science, Biosphere 2 designers and crew members, International Space Station scientists, experts in high-altitude ballooning and human spaceflight, as well as luxury and travel professionals) were on the ground while Eustace floated up by balloon to 135,908 feet.

Poynter describes that day as "terrifying and exhilarating." And it's an experience she now wants to bring to more people around the world, creating an industry around bringing people to the edge of space in balloons.

Poynter said her team is currently well under 50 people and she declined to comment on funding for the company. But her goal is to make World View a global company with launch locations around the world.

Until World View's first flight, Poynter will continue pushing the possibilities of space exploration, and if the opportunity to go to Mars comes up, she'll be first in line. She plans to go to the red planet in her lifetime, and she says she's surprised we aren't there already.

"I don't think I ever wrote myself a job description that was like this," Poynter said. "Biosphere 2 changed my life and opened my eyes up to the possibilities of what we can do — what humanity can do with regards to going to space. I've been lucky enough to be involved in a number of projects that are like science fiction in reality. It really opened my eyes to the possibilities."


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Nothing about how Biosphere 2 was run by a flying saucer cult and was a huge failure as a self-sustaining habitat...