[nonrandomstring]

As a systems person, what I really love is how this miracle you describe is itself just one small cog in vast machine of inter-dependent miracles. A plant growing from a seed is meaningless outside the context of soil, liquids and gases in the ecosystem, each part of some other life cycle.

This was brought home to me when a bachelors student presented a final year project for an "Aquaponics" [1] controller system. I'd never heard of such a thing but I was blown away by how far you can take control systems engineering in your own garden shed. Once you add fish, nutrients, acidity, micro-organisms and whatnot into the monitoring equations even the most simplified model takes on a majestic level of complexity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics

[arminiusreturns]

This is why I am so fascinated with closed loops systems such as aquaponiocs. If we can create a closed loop sustainable system in the small scale, we can then decentralize it to avoid the inevitable cause of the first likely long term international 21st century food crisis: monocultural devastation.

It also has space exploration implications.

[deepdriver]

You may enjoy reading about Lunar Palace 1, China's latest experiment with regenerative life support systems:

https://www.space.com/40610-china-mock-moon-mission-lunar-pa...

Or BIOS-3, the Soviet Union's experiments in this area during the in 1970s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS-3

The EU has the MELiSSA program, which has a nice website and lots of meetings but no human-scale enclosures of which I'm aware:

https://www.melissafoundation.org/

[nonrandomstring]

Amazing links. Thank you for posting.

[chubot]

The mostly failed Biosphere 2 project of the 90s, and the 1996 movie Bio Dome starring Pauly Shore, are relevant to those ideas :)

In all seriousness I do think it’s fascinating, and am interested in any developments since then