Image: Noah Sheldon

Nope, not a sequel to the Pauly Shore epic, but a great photo essay on BLDGBLOG by Geoff Manaugh with photos submitted by Noah Sheldon.  In this article, Mr. Manaugh gives a pretty good background on the project, its scientific goals, and even a bit on its place in the national psyche.  Always a topic for middle school science classes, the Biosphere 2 project was seemingly everywhere in the news in the early 90’s, but as the decade wore on and the sheer complexity of the building systems and maybe a bit of over ambition lead to the original scientific research aspirations to be abandoned.  That said, in recent years it has become a living, active research facility run by the University of Arizona at Tuscon and is even open to the public for tours.

Be sure to check out the original article, and even give a run through the comments for some other first hand accounts of this earthbound spaceship.

It is stunning,  it is massive,  it has been renamed, and now it’s actually open.  The World’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (Burj Dubai when under construction) has finally been opened in spectacular fashion.  (more…)