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Election 2016

Trump's Chief Strategist Appointee Once Ran Biosphere II Project

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 13, 2016
Filed under , ,
Trump's Chief Strategist Appointee 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”
Trump’s campaign CEO Stephen Bannon spent tumultuous time at Biosphere 2 in southern Arizona, Arizona Republic
“… the science project, which started with eight people living in a closed habitat, disintegrated amid earthly squabbles, lawsuits and allegations of sexual harassment involving Stephen Bannon. The former Biosphere 2 consultant went from dreams of space colonization to courtroom drama after he was accused in separate court filings of threatening one female employee and harassing another.”
Biosphere 2, Wikipedia
“After a successful turnaround by Bannon & Co. in December 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia University of New York City which embarked on a successful eight-year run at the Biosphere 2 campus. Columbia ran Biosphere 2 as a research site and campus until 2003. Subsequently, management reverted to the owners.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

11 responses to “Trump's Chief Strategist Appointee Once Ran Biosphere II Project”

  1. muomega0 says:
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    Chief Strategist? Trump often cited breitbart.com to emphasis how far ahead he was in the primaries IIRC.. wiki page states Bannon is the ‘executive chairman of Breitbart News’.

    Energy and Climate are national security issues, also offer a substantial amount of jobs that dwarf carbon based energy as well.

    Going with what folks believe is one thing…but creating the wrong belief is quite another… Net search: Breitbart NASA

    Edit: Trump looking at fast ways to quit global climate deal for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions….. global warming a hoax

    “Global Warming ‘Fabricated’ by NASA and NOAA

    “Alarmist Scientists Are Trying To Hide The Good News That The Planet Is Getting Greener”

    “German Professor: NASA Has Fiddled Climate Data On ‘Unbelievable’ Scale”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
    http://www.breitbart.com/lo
    http://www.breitbart.com/lo
    http://www.breitbart.com/bi
    http://www.aol.com/article/

  2. Jafafa Hots says:
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    He also ran Brietbart so he has a lot of experience operating impervious bubbles that continually recirculate effluvium..

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Tut-tut sir. The President -Elect has repeatedly said he will surround himself with smart people.

      Anybody who thinks running the country is a job that any serious citizen could handle is delusional. Our little county (not country) is run by a professional for a many good reasons. Cities do the same across the country. School Boards hire seasoned professionals.

      Let the entertainment begin.

      • muomega0 says:
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        Google “Brietbart NASA”…Sad day for Earth Sciences, International Agreement, and of course the Earth.

  3. Jeff2Space says:
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    Biosphere 2 was kind of a disaster as scientific research. Far too many variables at play at the same time. The whole project had the feel of a badly executed high school science experiment.

  4. mfwright says:
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    I wonder if we can use Biosphere 2 project as a model for a longterm Mars mission or a Martian colony (or a lunar base), that is of what can go wrong in terms of vunerabilities of closed-loop systems, problems of interactions among people, program management, etc. At least for Biosphere 2, participants can easily bailout and get back to the real world.

    • rktsci says:
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      There was some data out of Biosphere 2 that was useful, at least that’s what I was told when I worked on a NASA closed loop life support habitat project. There were a lot of problems at Biosphere – the windows had leakage problems, the concrete adsorbed gases until it was sealed, etc. But sometimes failures can help you avoid problems in the future.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        They threw everything they could including tons of (which was not sterilized, as far as I remember) dirt in the thing and sealed it up just to see what happened. As a scientific experiment it was about as backwards as you can get.

    • fcrary says:
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      I don’t think Biosphere 2 is analogous enough to tell us what problems to expect in extraterrestrial closed systems. But it is an excellent example of something we really should already know. Things will not work as planned. The idea that any amount of advanced design work and planning will make such a system 100% reliable is a bad joke. I think that argues for building in the ability to fix unexpected problems as they come up, rather than trying to identify and solve every possible problem in advance.

  5. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    Interesting. I don’t know a lot about him or Biosphere II, and a quick scan of Wikipedia seems doesn’t seem to indicate a particularly strong link between Bannon’s involvement and the space colonization aspects of the project. However, the idea of somebody with any background at all in space colonizations efforts becoming one of the chief advisers to the President seems potentially intriguing.

  6. Michael Spencer says:
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    This is the second time that Keith has posted a story about Mr. Bannon and Biosphere. I don’t get the point. My own reaction is: “So what?” is there something here I am missing?