Spaceship Earth: the Shape of our Planet!

Or “Can’t We Just Stop Destroying Things?”

I just watched Spaceship Earth, which is the story of the Biosphere2 project outside of Tucson, Arizona. I remember touring Biosphere2 with my youngest, a science buff, while visiting my dad in the 2000s. (I miss you, Dad.) It felt like I was inside a terrarium. Warm, moist, peaty. And so high-tech.

Biosphere2 was the baby of John Allen, who started a movement of Synergists in Berkeley in the 70s. My dad lived in Berkeley in the 70s! Wait, am I seeing a trend here? lol

Allen was inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s book, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1969. How is it that I am only now finding out about Buckminster Fuller? I guess the name sounds familiar — it’s so quirky — but I’ve seriously never read anything by this author. I wonder if he’s dropped out of our consciousness. He created the geodesic dome! How could he be forgotten?

This documentary was dropping movie and book selections into my “to-do” list like a micromanaging boss. I watched Silent Running a 1972 movie about a biosphere on a spaceship after Earth was a full environmental disaster. Kind of like a Noah’s Ark that left the solar system. I plan on reading Mount Analogue by René Daumal. And definitely one of Buckminster’s books.

And then a nut popped into the movie, and I don’t mean in the peanut butter sandwiches of the Biosphere2 Cosmonauts. More like a Black Walnut that poisons the ground around it to keep off the competition.

It was Stephen Bannon. Yes, that Stephen Bannon. Who ran the alt-right Breitbart. Who ran Donald Trump’s 2016 Election campaign. Who gets mad at Trump if he isn’t far enough to the right!

Bannon essentially came in to oversee the DESTRUCTION of the project. (Sorry for yelling.) It’s like he was auditioning for his future role in the country.

This movie was really a stunning watch. It brought so many things together in my mind. It was like a Pinball Machine in my head. Ping-ping! I might even watch it again.

Watched on Kanopy at my local library: SpaceShip Earth documentary, 2020