
Minimum Number of Settlers for Survival on Another Planet – Scientific Reports - rbanffy
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66740-0
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rsecora
From my point of view, the main threat to colonize other planet and survive
are other humans.

The paper focus on resource extraction and management. I have always give that
for granted.

There have been different experiences of human cohabitation. With mixed
results.

Mars500 [2] has been successful with a long story of experiment. Hi-SEAS has
been successful [3].

But the Biosphere2 [1] was a revealing project.

There was miscalculations in the project, and the team was not able to surpass
the inconveniences. They split in two groups. In Biosphere2 people who had
been intimate friends had become implacable enemies, barely on speaking terms.

The factions inside the bubble formed from a rift and power struggle between
the joint venture partners on how the science should proceed. Finally due to
resource scarcity and not able to self sufficiency, the project was cancelled.

In another planet, the colony can't be cancelled, they will dye.

The irony of the situations is explained in game theory. Even when the best
strategy is colaboration, some humans prefer far from optimal decisions.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HI-SEAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HI-
SEAS)

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JoeAltmaier
Interesting, but pretty basic. The more interesting question than "How many
people does it take to work all the survival systems" is, "How many people
does it take to be biologically/genetically healthy?" Could be a much larger
number.

And that adds the child-raising weight to the equation. Long-term survival
must consider supportable growth rate, genetic health in the presence of
setbacks (e.g. death of a random 20% of the colony) etc.

~~~
zeristor
Also worth bearing in mind the genetic diversity of plants used for food,
animals for live stock, gut bacteria, soil bacteria.

To a large extent humans are part of the greater ecosystem of Earth.

Perhaps with genetic engineering the Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms could be
inserted a while afterwards to “inflate” diversity, I’ve not heard much about
that but if one has a few examples of a species they could be used as a
template to provide additional biodiversity.

