Historic Downtown and Biosphere 2

We toured downtown tuscon on a segway, my first tour on a segway, I always though it was cool but too expensive and since our friend had already paid for it.. we were forced to go.. and it was so much fun. So there is no accelerator on these machines, its all run by a gyroscope below the feet and it really responds to the foot movement.. to go forward, backward and stop. After a while it became very natural, such an easy way to get lazy!



"The Segway PT is a two-wheeled, self-balancing electric vehicle invented by Dean Kamen. It is produced by Segway Inc. of New Hampshire, USA. The name "Segway" (/ˈsɛɡwej/) is a homophone of "segue" (/ˈsɛɡweɪ/) (a smooth transition, literally Italian for "follows") while "PT" denotes personal transporter.

Computers and motors in the base of the device keep the Segway PT upright when powered on with balancing enabled. A user commands the Segway to go forward by shifting his weight forward on the platform, and backward by shifting his weight backward. The Segway notices, as it balances, the change in its center of mass, and first establishes and then maintains a corresponding speed, forward or backward.Gyroscopic sensors and fluid-based leveling sensors are used to detect the shifting weight. To turn, the user manipulates the handlebar left or right.

Segway PTs are driven by electric motors and can go up to 12.5 miles per hour (20.1 km/h)."

here;s some unscripted question: Do you know how the segway owner died?
Answer: "Jimi Heselden, the man who purchased the Segway company from inventor Dean Kamen, died in a Segway accident yesterday.

The 62-year-old Heselden was apparently riding a rugged Segway x2 Adventure model (above photo) around his property when the accident occurred, according to The Independent.

Police believe that Heselden's Segway drove off a cliff into the River Wharfe, which is located in Yorkshire, England. A spokesman for the West Yorkshire police department said, "Police have named James William Heselden as the 62-year-old local man who was pronounced dead yesterday after being pulled from the River Wharfe near to Leys Lane at Boston Spa."" More

Some highlights from the tour: The company we toured with was run by a husband and wife, former was a retired IBM programmer and latter was someone who used a segway for personal use. Really nice couple, their company is called Roll with it

What we did was called the Presidio Trail

The Presidio Trail: A Historical Guided Segway Tour of Downtown Tucson.Presented in cooperation with the Tucson Presidio Trust. 

Climb aboard a self-balancing, battery-powered Segway PT for an unparalleled sightseeing experience! With insightful commentary provided by a professional guide, you'll glide right up alongside Tucson's greatest landmarks!

After graduating from training, you'll head out to the unique sites of Downtown Tucson, including:

• Historic Fourth Avenue shopping district - six blocks of gorgeous window displays and over one hundred shops, specializing in everything from antiques to custom-made furniture to Mexican imports
• The Historic Railroad Depot where a life-size sculpture of Wyatt Earp and "Doc" Holiday marks the 1882 incident ending in the death of Frank Stilwell near the first depot
• Unforgettable views of "A" Mountain
• Presidio San Agustin de Tucson - the adobe fort which was the beginning of Tucson
• Barrio Viejo Streetscape - adobe buildings built in the Sonoran row-house style in the late 1800s
  

After a wondeful lunch at Delectables we headed over to Biosphere 2, where we learnt more about the Earth's eco system and this failed experiment that was an engineering marvel, scientific failure but a great learning experience in human co-existence. 

"Biosphere 2 is a 3.14-acre (12,700 m²)^[1] structure originally built to be an artificial, materially-closed ecological system in Oracle, Arizona (USA) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on natural biomes and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature.^[2] It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere, Biosphere 1. Earth's life system is the only biosphere currently known. Funding for the project came primarily from the joint venture's financial partner, Ed Bass' Decisions Investment, and cost $200 million from 1985 to 2007, including land, support research greenhouses, test module and staff facilities."

We learnt a lot about the engineering systems that were run to make this possible, to create eco systems with desert, rainforest, tropical all within one enclosed space.. there was an ocean and a waterfall.. 

here's a little about the first mission: 

"

First mission

The first closed mission lasted from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. The crew were: medical doctor and researcher Roy Walford, Jane Poynter, Taber MacCallum, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling (a late replacement for Silke Schneider), Mark Van Thillo and Linda Leigh.

The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included a wide variety of crops including bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat.^[11] No toxic chemicals could be used, since they would quickly impact health. During the first year the eight inhabitants experienced hunger as they adapted. During the second year, the crew produced over a ton more food, average caloric intake increased, and they regained some weight lost during the first year.

They consumed the same low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet which Roy Walford had extensively studied in his research on extending lifespan through diet. ^[12] Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. Strikingly, they showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year.^[13] Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.^[14]

Some of the domestic animals that were planned for the agricultural area during the first mission include four pygmy goats and one billy goat from the plateau region of Nigeria, 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl or gallus gallus, Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these), two sows and one boar pig (feral), as well as tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.^[15]

A strategy of "species-packing" was practiced to ensure that food webs and ecological function could be maintained if some species did not survive. The fog desert area became morechaparral due to condensation from the space frame. The savannah was seasonally active; its biomass was cut and stored by the crew as part of their management of carbon dioxide. Rainforest pioneer species grew rapidly, but trees there and in the savannah suffered from etiolation and weakness caused by lack of stress wood, normally created in response to winds in natural conditions. Corals reproduced in the ocean area and crew helped maintain ocean system health by hand-harvesting algae from the corals, manipulating calcium carbonate and pH levels to prevent the ocean becoming too acidic, and by installing an improved protein skimmer to supplement the algae turf scrubber system originally installed to remove excess nutrients.^[16] The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland possibly because of reduced light levels.^[17]

Biosphere 2 suffered from CO₂ levels that "fluctuated wildly" and most of the vertebrate species and all of the pollinating insects died.^[18] Insect pests, like cockroaches, boomed. In practice, ants, a companion to one of the tree species (Cecropia) in the Rain Forest, had been introduced. By 1993 the tramp ant species Paratrechina longicornis, local to the area had been unintentionally sealed in and had come to dominate.^{[citation needed]} Galagos reproduced in Biosphere 2, but a number of pollinating insects were lost to ant predation and several bird species were lost. However, many of the pollinating duties were performed by those ants and cockroaches."

I am about to start on the book Human experience, that is written by one of the biosphere-eans.. what an incredible experience..!