Trump Campaign CEO Bannon Once Ran Biosphere II Project
Trump’s Campaign CEO Ran a Secretive Sci-Fi Project in the Arizona Desert, Mother Jones
“Long before Stephen Bannon was CEO of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he held a much different job – as the acting director of Biosphere 2, a $200 million scientific research facility in the mountains outside Tucson, Arizona. … Bannon left Biosphere 2 after two years, and the project was taken over by Columbia University. (It is currently part of the University of Arizona.) But his departure was marred, as the Tucson Citizen reported at the time, by a civil lawsuit filed against Space Biosphere Ventures by the former crew members who had broken in.”
Before Breitbart, before Trump, Bannon bullied people in Biosphere 2, Boing Boing
“Archival reports from 1993 found in the Star-Telegram archives show that Bannon was hired to take over the project at a point where it losing $12-15 million a year. Bannon was a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who ran a firm based in Los Angeles and New York that specialized in media and entertainment investments. .. Bannon’s actions soon ended up as part of a civil suit filed by some of the original Biospherians against the new guard. In court, he admitted speaking angry words that echo some more recent accusations against him.”
Biosphere 2, wikipedia
“Biosphere 2 was only used twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from 1991 to 1993, and the second time from March to September 1994. Both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animal and plant species, squabbling among the resident scientists and management issues.”
So? How is this relevant?
It’s just an interesting coincidence. But the Biosphere project juxtaposes our human aspirations and weaknesses. A lofty but flawed dream, brought to an end by human failings, only to end up as a mundane but fairly useful university facility.
I always thought that Biosphere got a bad rap. Lots of scientific investigations produce data from unexpected sources; this was one, including poor design driven by hubris.
I was involved in many of the NASA science reviews of this project. Lets just say that Biosphere II bit off vastly more than they could chew – and that the science was an after thought.
If the science was an after-thought, then what was the primary impetus for the facility?
As a vehicle for a Pauly Shore movie?
(someone had to say it…..)
Tourist destination?
http://biosphere2.org/visit…
It’s my (limited) understanding that atmosphere regeneration and food production were insufficient due to difficulty maintaining the plants in the habitat at the level of productivity that had been assumed possible. Agriculture is a complicated business at best, and more so in a closed environment. One might wish the money had been better spent, but that is up to the person who financed it.
Even so, that’s a finding.
I agree. if a space colony depends on plants to maintain its environment you will need some people that really know plants, because a single failed crop could be a real problem.
If memory serves, Biosphere 2 was not exactly a management triumph. I believe Mr. Trump is sometimes credited with a talent for selecting talented managers.
OTOH, good managers fail if assigned to run a flawed department or project. Doomed at birth.
It’s a biological experimental with potential findings that can be relevant to astrobiologists.
Hi Wendy,
I wanted to poke our host a bit, that’s all, and as usual the hook was improperly baited.
I recall well when it opened. I thought it was grand! The press ridiculed it from the start and while I never fully learned the tragic management that doomed it, much was learned not the least of which is careful crew vetting. It’s the kind of project sorely needed, the kind of thing NASA should embrace.
Because this was a rather prominent activity – and NASA’s involvement or lack thereof – was the topic of much discourse. The CEO of a major presidential campaign used to manage a facility which was envisioned as a way for colonies to be built on other worlds as well as to help understand climate change. Oh yes – the team behind World View was in the first Biosphere II team and formed a company afterward that has been a NASA contractor for nearly 2 decades. Highly relevant to NASA? Sure.
Turns out that CEO has other skeletons in his closet.
Still the fundamental research of large scale closed systems doesn’t appear to be far from NASA’s interests? I wasn’t aware that climate change was an issue when B2 was built.
When this facility was announced I had high hopes it would address the critical and neglected need to understand how to build sustainable space habitats. Sadly it ended up as nothing more then an experiment in holistic ecology. Pity as if we are ever going to develop and settle space (pick your location, orbit, Moon, Mars Venus…) we really need to understand how to build facilities that are mostly self-sustainable. As it stand we really don’t even know what plants to take with us, let allow how to adapt them for high yield production in a mostly closed artificial environment.
Far too many variables in that project. As a science fair project, I’d give it an “F”.