Trump's chief strategist Bannon spent tumultuous time at Biosphere 2 in southern Arizona
President-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist spent the early 1990s working at Biosphere 2, then a multimillion-dollar project bankrolled by a Texas billionaire that aimed to create a model for sustaining life on other planets.
But the science project, which started with eight people living in a closed habitat, disintegrated amid earthly squabbles, lawsuits and allegations of sexual harassment involving Stephen Bannon.
The former Biosphere 2 consultant went from dreams of space colonization to courtroom drama after he was accused in separate court filings of threatening one female employee and harassing another.
Bannon, a former California investment banker, Hollywood movie producer and chairman of the ultra-conservative Breitbart News website, was tapped to head Trump’s campaign after a staff shakeup in August and has since been named chief strategist and senior counselor to the Trump White House.
Bannon’s Arizona connection dates to 1993, when as a consultant he was asked to cut costs at Biosphere 2, a 3-acre domed terrarium in Oracle where eight people sought to live for two years without outside contact. Their time in the giant greenhouse ran from September 1991 to September 1993.
The $200 million project was funded by Texas philanthropist Ed Bass, whose family’s oil money made him one of the wealthiest people in the world.
Biosphere 2 had 3,800 species of plants and animals and a variety of ecosystems, including ocean, forest and desert. It was supposed to set the stage for terraforming other worlds and prove that people could live as a colony while growing their own crops.
The first two-year experiment was besieged with problems. A scientist was injured and had to be evacuated, crops wouldn’t grow, carbon dioxide levels soared, the dome was infested with ants and cockroaches and costs were skyrocketing to about $1 million a month, according to court records and interviews.
Bannon described the two missions within Biosphere 2 as heroic in a 1995 interview with CSPAN.
“The first mission was two years long," Bannon said in the interview. "The people came in for two years and it was a survival demonstration. Very successful, very heroic people."
Turmoil and lawsuits involving Biosphere leaders, crew members
Two years earlier, in 1993, he sought management changes as part of a takeover effort.
Bannon advised ousting two managers and resigned as CEO when the parent company, Space Biosphere Ventures, rejected his recommendation. He was rehired in 1994 when his recommendations were adopted. Lawsuits soon followed.
Court records show Biosphere 2 officials filed a federal lawsuit accusing project director Margret Augustine of self-dealing and of funneling $800,000 of project money into her own company. They sought to put the company into receivership and ban Augustine and other managers from the site.
Trump adviser Steve Bannon becomes 'the story'
Augustine denied wrongdoing and the next day filed her own lawsuit in Pinal County Superior Court seeking $44.5 million in damages for breach of contract, libel, slander and sexual harassment, among other allegations.
She accused Bannon and another manager of making lewd, suggestive and disparaging remarks about her and other employees.
Augustine later settled her case. The terms were not disclosed.
That wasn’t the end of Bannon’s legal troubles over accusations that he mistreated women.
Two former Biosphere 2 crew members who were fired sued Space Biosphere Ventures for breach of contract along with several other claims.
Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo were fired in 1994 after they admitted breaking into the Biosphere 2 to warn crew members on the second mission that Bannon had been rehired and soon would be taking over.
The Tucson Citizen reported in 1996 that Bannon admitted in court to threatening Alling and making disparaging remarks about her.
He told Pinal County jurors that after Alling wrote a five-page safety memo, he once threatened to “ram it down her (expletive) throat.” Bannon also admitted calling her a “bimbo” and referring to her as “self-centered and deluded,” the Citizen reported.
Trump campaign CEO faces fresh scrutiny over alleged anti-Semitic remarks
The jury found in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered Space Biosphere Ventures to pay $600,000 in damages. Alling and Thillo were ordered to pay $41,000 for breaking into the facility.
The survival experiments ended at Biosphere 2 in 1994.
Bannon successfully managed the project until it was transferred to Columbia University in 1996, which operated it as a research site. In 2007, it was sold to the University of Arizona.
“At the outset, B2 was a rich man’s toy,” Joel E. Cohen, a professor of populations at the Rockefeller University, told The Arizona Republic in a 2004 article. “It was not an experiment as scientists think of an experiment because it was unreplicated and had no controls for comparisons.”
Biosphere 2 blends visitors with science
A dismissed domestic-violence arrest
Bannon in 1996 also was arrested and pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor domestic-violence charges involving his wife. Santa Monica, California, police arrested Bannon after allegations he grabbed his wife violently during an argument, police records show.
Bannon’s wife told police the New Year’s Day dispute was not the first time an argument resulted in physical violence and that the couple had been in counseling.
The case was dismissed when Bannon’s wife failed to show up for a court hearing after a trial had been set. The couple later divorced.
