An Insight to the Future and A History Lesson in the Past

A Picture of 1/2 The Biosphere 2

This week we wandered north to the City of Tucson, Arizona. The city has a population of approximately 1,000,000 and is the second largest city in Arizona, and is the home of to the University of Arizona.
We had many boat parts ordered from West Marine and charts sent to the Motel 6, where we were staying. On our arrival the manager went out of his way to make sure our stay would be enjoyable. The first two days were spent shopping and buying things that we have found difficult or impossible to find in Mexico, and anticipate to have more problems finding them in Central America.
Tucson is a very clean and busy town. The city’s geography is cactus forests, rolling hills and to our surprise mountains. We were informed at a ski and golf store that there are several downhill ski resorts in the area.
Tucson lies in the border land area and has a blend of American Indian, American and Mexican heritage.
Tucson was founded in 1795 when it was American Native agriculture land, it then passed to a Spanish outpost, then to a frontier town with gambling and silver, copper mines, to what it is today, a thriving city.
The City of Tucson is 2400 feet above sea level and covers more than 500 square miles of land.
Tucson is the sunniest city in the United States with 350 days of sunshine. It is warm in the day but cools at night making it a pleasant place to visit. It did make the pool cool however as there was no heating.
We did play tourist for a full day. Our first visit was to Biosphere 2. This unique structure was created to better understand how natural environments create habitable conditions for human sustainability.
It was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on natural biomes (ecosystems) and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature. It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming the earth.
The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were a medical doctor and researchers, a total of eight persons.
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants experienced hunger as they adapted. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.
Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat, 35 hens and three roosters, two sows and one boar pig, as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in china.
A strategy of “species-packing” was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The desert area became more failed due to condensation from the space frame. The Savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest species grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from lack of ultraviolet rays and weakness caused by lack of stress wood, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too salty. We were told that this alone created a tremendous amount of work for the marine biologist. The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less undergrowth than a typical wetland, again possibly because of reduced light levels.
Biosphere 2 suffered from CO2 levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the bees used for pollinating died. It was explained to us that bees need the UV Rays in order to have good eye site. The bees kept flying into the windows and all died. Insect pests, like cockroaches, boomed. In practice, ants, a companion to one of the tree species in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species became dormant, therefore several bird species were lost.
Due to the decrease in CO2 levels the scientist began showing signs of mental anguish. It was decided when the Doctor could not answer what 2+2= that oxygen would be introduced into the biosphere. They noticed that with the increased oxygen the plants also began to change.
It was deemed that this 2 year mission was a failure, however through time and research that was gathered many scientific breakthroughs have occurred. It was a failure as far a space station but it pushed science much further and still is teaching the researchers a great deal. We could have spent a week here learning so much but with only 1 ½ days to take in as much as we wanted to see 3 hrs was all we could give this unique place.
We traveled from Science and the future to History with its past.
Tombstone, Arizona. “The Town Too Tough to Die” Home to legendary men of the American West like Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp, and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Tombstone sprang up around the mines discovered by Ed Schieffelin in 1877. The settlement became a village in 1879, and a city in 1881. It had a population of 10,000 people during its hay day now 1200 people call Tombstone home.
In the 1880s, Tombstone was a booming mining town that brought a rush of those looking to strike it rich. Gold and Silver was the lure that also became a magnet to thieves, card-sharks, murderers, rustlers and an abundance of unsavory bad guys. The streets came alive with hundreds of saloons, gambling halls and bawdy houses. Chinese were brought to the country to work in the mines, and with this came the opium dens.
A trip to the Boothill Graveyard is a travel back in time to when the graveyard overflowed with those shot during poker games, killed in drunken-induced gunfights and even hung for simply becoming a public nuisance. Undertaking was no doubt a lucrative profession. One headstone reads “ Lester Moore-Here lies Lester Moore, 4 slugs from a .44, No les, no more.” Moore was a Wells Fargo agent and had a dispute with a man over a package both died.
Tombstone is perhaps most famous for its Gunfight at OK Corral when the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan, along with friend Doc Holliday shot it out with the Clanton and McLaury Gang. The fierce gunfight was quick and when the bullets stopped flying, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury lay dead. Billy’s brother, Ike Clanton kept his life that day, but was eventually murdered near Springerville Arizona. Virgil and Morgan Earp needed weeks to recover from serious wounds, but Doc Holliday was barely grazed by a bullet. Surprisingly, Wyatt Earp was unscathed.
On the highway back to Mexico we passed the Titan Missile Museum. The Titan II missile was the largest missile ever built by the United States. They stood alert during the Cold War to protect the country. You can tour the underground silo but we ran out of time. They have now been deactivated.
Our return to Mexico was painless and we had our 180 day tourist card reissued allowing us to stay longer thereby not rushing our departure in November.
Well its time to get back to travel mode in the ocean which means checking out all our systems and securing everything for the swells. Until next week.