Can humans live happily in space?

While Biosphere II type facilities are essential for confirming the
technical parameters, and doing stress tests on Humans, we can obtain a lot
of mileage by collating all the information on indoor facilities currently
available all over the globe. In Scandinavian countries for instance they
are probably forced to stay indoors for half the year, how do they cope?
There are indoor beaches I believe in Japan, how good is the simulation? Lot
of chickens and other animals are raised indoors, and there is lot of
criticism that these are not as good as free-ranging animals. Why so? Can't
high quality greenhouses be constructed where animals are as healthy as
being out of doors?

I was watching a news item on TV the other day, where they were describing a
farm right in the middle of Tokyo. The facility is underground and all
kinds of items are grown under artificial light. Part of the goal of this
facility seems to be to make city dwellers aware that there is something
called agriculture. Many folks may be thinking that it is the vending
machine which produces milk : - ) They had their own sets of problems
apparently, like when they found out that the paddy that was growing was not
too healthy. An old farmer set the scientists right, pointing out, that out
of doors the wind sways the stalks helping the paddy to grow up strong. They
now stroke the plants : - )

By the time we finish putting up habs in Moon orbit, for every $ invested we
will get back 5$, which will nourish the global economy.

Selvaraj

From: "Al Globus"

While most people consider Biosphere II a failure, it is good to remember
that in spite of making a lot of big mistakes, they were able to maintain
closure (or something very close) for over a year on the first try. That's
quite an accomplishment in my book.

It suggests that building closed biospheres is not all that hard,
particularly if emergency resupply is no more than a few days or weeks
away. In other words, colonies in Earth orbit should be able to run closed
biospheres with only the usual problems, not anything horrendous.

At 07:56 AM 5/10/2006, you wrote: