Spaceship Earth

In 1991, eight young ‘biospherians’, followers of charismatic activist John Allen, the pan’s spiritual father, allowed themselves to be locked into a gigantic glass dome. Under it lay various ecosystems, including a tropical rainforest, a tropical ocean with reef, a desert and a savannah featuring hundreds of carefully curated organisms.

For two years, the eight Americans were to conduct scientific experiments and trials aiming to establish which influence humanity has on its environment. Soon however, the group was simply trying to survive: CO2 emissions were rising, the harvests were poor and the experiment didn’t meet scientific standards. After two years the now emaciated, exhausted participants emerged from the biosphere.

Matt Wolf’s documentary is the sober opposite of SF film Silent Running (1971, Douglas Trumbull), in which a botanist in a spaceship puts it all on the line to save the last surviving plants from planet earth. John Allen’s dream was to make other planets inhabitable for humans using biosphere-like domes.