Over two decades ago, eight people entered what they called Biosphere 2. It is a 3,15 acre ecological ark which is situated an hour north of Tuscon, Arizona. The aim of the mission was to live in the biosphere for two years. Nothing could come into the biosphere and nothing could leave. The main issue was probably not the confined space but rather that the crew had to live with each other for two years, without any other human interaction.

Sally Silverstone, farm manager and crew co-captain said:

 I don’t think anything could have really prepared us for those two years inside Biosphere 2…Imagine that you were trapped inside, with your immediate family members, for two years, and you didn’t get to see anybody else, and you just had to be with them night and day.

Linda Leigh terrestrial wilderness manager said:

There were some mean times…People did not talk to each other. It very much was a split of two groups. The main chasm between us was the different ideas of how we would manage the biosphere.

These types of experiments add huge amounts of information that could be relevant to deep space exploration and colonisation. Just recently a one way trip to Mars was announced: a reality TV show – Mars One. But could you really do this for two years? Would you be psychologically prepared?

[Source: io9, YouTube]