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Which foods did the first Biosphere 2 crew produce inside the enclosure?
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Biosphere 2
Biosphere 2, located in Oracle, Arizona, U.S., shown in 2008. The facility was originally developed to study survivability and assess whether humans were capable of building and living in self-sustaining colonies in outer space. It was later used as a scientific research facility.
During the first mission at Biosphere 2, the crew was tasked with producing their own food within the facility's agricultural domes. Their diet consisted of the following:
- Vegetables and grains: Cultivated from plants grown in soil beds.1
- Animal products: Including meat, eggs, and milk sourced from farm animals kept inside the enclosure.1
- Fish: Raised in aquaculture beds.1
Although the crew aimed for self-sufficiency, they struggled to achieve maximal food production during the mission, partly due to limited photosynthesis caused by increased cloud cover during the 1991–92 El Niño year.1