Considering humanity was knocked down to about 1200 people about 800,000 years ago and we survived without any technology to speak of, let alone genetic testing that would help determine maximum diversity, I’d say you might not have the right of it.
Comment on What’s the Bare Minimum Number of People for a Mars Habitat?
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You want a colony consisting only of fanatics? Then 22 may be the number. It’s going to be 22 very different types, and every one of them has to decide every day that this is going to last long…
If you want a colony consisting of normal people that lasts for long, then you need thousands. Humans need a lot diversity before they can be normal and stay healthy.
ikidd@lemmy.world 1 year ago
ahornsirup@artemis.camp 1 year ago
That assumes that everyone will be willing to have children with just about anyone, regardless of their personal opinion of them, and regardless of whether or not they even want children to begin with. You can't selectively breed humans without massive human rights violations.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 1 year ago
many things were very different then.
wahming@monyet.cc 1 year ago
Read the article. It’s not about building a local population on Mars that will populate the planet, it’s about the bare minimum to operate an outpost with regular supply drops from earth and replacement personnel in case of fatalities.
AEsheron@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I recall a similar study years ago. They concluded 32 was minimal viable, assuming a strict breeding regiment over several generations, with 8 men and 24 women. They also concluded about 500 would be the smallest particular size, given people aren’t robots and losing even a couple people before leaving the breeding pool would be very bad. Interesting we’ve got it down to even fewer now, theoretically.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Thank you for pointing out this detail of possibly returning!
We might be able to travel to Mars in a few years. But it will take many more years before anybody can travel back from there.
Mars has a gravity similar to earth. In order to leave the planet we need to launch rockets from there, about the same size as we launch from earth. And therefore we need to build lots of stuff there and operate it properly.
The first ‘colonists’ will have to go with the expectation of never returning.
octoperson@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I don’t think Mars colonies are realistic, but not for this reason. Mars has about one third the gravity of earth, and a much thinner atmosphere, so you can return on a significantly smaller rocket than you launched with. It’s true that manufacturing a space rocket of any size would require basically an entire civilization, but there’s no reason you couldn’t bring the return vehicle with you, and only require manufacturing fuel or propellant on site.
The top answer to this stackexchange post goes into a lot more detail on the practicalities …stackexchange.com/…/how-big-would-a-manned-ascen…
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 1 year ago
LOL. For example simply it’s weight is a reason. A vehicle for landing and a vehicle for starting may be the same, or may be two very different things because of their weight.
And then bringing the vehicle is one thing, but starting it is quite something else again.