In 1991, there was a $200 million dollar experiment that consisted of eight people living inside a glass-enclosed/sealed 3.15 acre room in Oracle, Arizona for two years. The inventor was Margret Augustine and was built by the Space Biosphere Ventures. The point of this experiment was to explore the interactions between all the life organisms and how nature reacted with humans, farming, and technology. As a result of these humans living in this sealed bubble, air quality plummeted, carbon dioxide levels rose, and oxygen had to be pumped into the biosphere from the outside world in order for the people to remain healthy. Vines also "choked" out crops and trees. Their water supply also became polluted with nutrients so much that the people had to filter it by hand before it was safe to drink it. Also, 19 out of the 25 animal species became extinct within 2 years. $200 million dollars couldn't maintain the ecosystem for eight people over a 17 month time period. Having said that, us humans add eight people to our planet every 3 seconds. In conclusion, it would be extremely expensive for humans to live in closed biospheres in space colonization and even if we had the money to do this, it'd be nearly impossible to maintain these biospheres after a year or so.
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