• Opening, remarks , John Allen
• Opening Remarks, Mark Nelson

• Dr. Peter Warshall, Ecological Resource Consultant, and
• Tony Burgess, Botanist, U.S. Geological Survey, Tucson

• Dr. David Wright, Ecologist, Tucson, Arizona, and
• Dr. Cameron Gunderson, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, UCLA

• Joe Hanson, Project Management, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CI'
• Dr. David Wright, Ecologist, Tucson, AZ

• Loren Acker, President, Engineering and Research Associates Inc., Tucson, Arizona
• Dr. Ralph Abraham, Professor of Mathematics, University of California at Santa Cruz

• Professor Keith Runcorn, FRS, Head, School of Physics,
  University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
  
  Dr. Carol Breed, Astrogeologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona

• Dr. Roy Walford, Professor of Pathology, UCLA School of Medicine
• Dr. Donald Paglia, Professor of Pathology, UCLA School of Medicine

Opening Remarks by Mark Nelson

Chairman, Institute of Ecotechnics

Nine months ago we launched the Space Biopheres Ventures' project to create the first man-made biosphere with a conference which affirmed both the feasibility and importance of such an undertaking.

We meet again to take further steps towards that historic mitosis, reviewing work accomplished to date --and re-calibrating our total systems flight trajectory to targeted objectives.

We are living in the greatest age of exploration man has known, far greater than the migration of ancient peoples, the European discovery of the Americas, the first journey to the Poles --the life and death of stars, black holes, quasars, even the radiation echoes of the Big Bang have become part of our world-picture, while the discovery of subatomic particles, nuclear energy, and microorganisms extend our grasp of the underlying basis of matter and life systems. Man has physically escaped the Earth's gravitational hold, voyaging in man-machine systems to look back in wonder at our Blue Planet, and sent robot voyagers to explore the new worlds of our solar system and travel beyond it.

Archimedes said,"Give me a point outside the Earth, and I can move it". Space Exploration has given us access to the physical world outside the Earth. To create Biosphere 2 will give man his first opportunity to step into a new living world.

Biospherics will demonstrate the complex interrelationships which operate on our Planet --and makes clear, if we are to pursue and succeed in our destiny both on Earth and in the Cosmos, that man will not, and cannot, do it alone but can in synergy with the biosphere.

Opening remarks by John Allen,
Total Systems Consultant

THE PURPOSE OF THE 1984 BIOSPHERE CONFERENCE

Friends and Fellow Students of the Universe:

The engine of purpose is passion, so before taking up the purpose of the Biosphere Conference,, we should look at the passions that inform this purpose. Contemplating this gathering, I see the passion for life, the passion for the authentic new, and, above all, the passion for truth.

The purpose of the Biosphere Conference can be formulated as:

For definitions:

By Biosphere we mean a stable, complex and evolving system of minerals, gases, the five kingdoms of life, at least three to five ecosystems, and at least one culture, a technics, with a minimal material interchange with the macrocosmos but energetically open to sources to provide the evolutionary fueL

By minimal we mean at the order of magnitude of cosmic material to biomass impacting on the earth's Biosphere.

By mitosis we mean the present Biosphere will have to divide in some way, as obviously we cannot create a completely new biosphere.

By technics we mean a working-together system open to innovations of machines, apparatus, utensils, power, communications, mathematics, and research.
To accomplish these great purposes, besides the passions for life, the new, and truth, we need a set of specific subpurposes for steps. And the specific purpose of this conference can be formulated: to produce a working network that will enable the design of the first mitosis. The next step, of course, is construction, the next operation, the next critique and do it better, and the last to establish the production and marketing. As we can all see, if these purposes are achieved, and they must be if Gaian life is to attain to its fullness of meaning rather than live and die fortuitously in a small corner of the Cosmos, we shall all be contributing to another step in the objective history of man on this planet which is the struggle to realize all possibilities.

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