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If he wants rain, or wind, or light with UV, a day/night cycle with the associated heating and cooling, or seasons; while building the structures for that may cost resources, scholars in biology, ecology, meterology, and more will be very happy for an excuse to indulge in replicating an alien system and challenging what they know. They even have an alien to tell them if they’re doing it wrong.

Even better, the movie shows plants propagating in Grace’s house. Doubtlessly those will eventually be propagated across the dome, and then all of the work done towards recreating Earth will be further rewarded. The dome becomes bustling with activity, not just for Grace but all the people studying a slice of alien ecology. Helps Grace feel more connected too, when there’s a team of people scuttling in and out all the time, doing their own thing. (The work will likely outlive him; good. The dome can stay a place of study instead of just a grave. No better memorial for a teacher.)

Amenities and machines are an even easier sell, for the most part. The software and computational parts take a lot of carapace-scratching, but that’s a great study for the engineers and inventors the world over, and fabrication of human tech parts is laughably easy. A washing machine, an iron, a stove, a sink and shower with running water, a lock and key, a pen, a vacuum, a microwave, a bike. All architectural and engineering curiosities that aren’t extremely difficult to study and make (compared to the dome itself). All of them, alien cultural artifacts. The xeno-anthropologists are having a good time.