In 1985, The Washington Post was reporting that there were questions surrounding one of their major donors, a multimillionaire named Edward Bass, who had supposedly suffered through more than one beating at the hands of Synergetic Civilization leader John Allen. Regardless, he had still donated around $30 million toward the construction of Biosphere 2, and the original plans included having the entire complex in orbit around the planet by the mid-90s.
Ambitious, indeed, considering the University of Arizona says that construction didn't even start until 1986. Still, Biosphere 2 was impressive: it covered more than three acres, and contained miniature versions of a tropical rainforest, wetlands, a savannah grassland, a desert, and even had an ocean with its own coral reef.
In the basement — which stretched over nearly the full three acres — was the "Technosphere," where all the equipment that helped run the dome was kept. That included things like generators, an "Energy Center," and units that would help control the air temperature and humidity inside the structure. It's also worth mentioning that machinery that ran on electricity was allowed within their "self-sustaining" model because — in theory — any otherworldly outpost would have a way of generating its own electricity, whether that was by solar power, wind, or some other method.
