Into the unknown

When I was a teenager I remember reading a magazine article about a group of people who were going to spend two years living together in a scientific research compound in Arizona. Known as Biosphere 2, part of it looked like a huge greenhouse. In the early 90s eight people, including a botanist, a doctor and a marine biologist, entered the compound which reportedly cost US$150 million. The experiment – at least in the beginning – received a flurry of publicity. However, not everything ran as smoothly as hoped. (Imagine being quarantined for two years.) The documentary Spaceship Earth looks at the radical way of life and asks if it was all worth it. Streams on DocPlay.