What’s the Bare Minimum Number of People for a Mars Habitat?

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to Technology@lemmy.world – 171 points – What’s the Bare Minimum Number of People for a Mars Habitat?
universetoday.com

A recent preprint paper examines the minimum number of people required to maintain a feasible settlement on Mars while accounting for psychological and behavioral factors, specifically in emergency situations. This study was conducted by a team of data scientists from George Mason University and holds the potential to help researchers better understand the appropriate conditions …

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“In the end, they determined that a minimum colony population of 22 agents was ideal to maintain a feasible Mars mining colony over the long-term.”

Until one of them is The Thing.

I always confused "The Thing" with the character from Fantastic Four. And never understood why people were afraid of a rock person who shouts "It's clobbering time!"

You can get it down to 21 if you call Black Jack.

Does that include the mad eco terrorist/saviour stow away who kick starts terra forming Mars then founds his own colony on the South Pole?

Yes, but that's four different people. One eco-terrorist, one stowaway, one terraforming fanatic, and one founder of a weird sex cult.

Presumably some of them would have to be female, making a Mars colony settled entirely by muskies unviable.

Unviable, but maybe still a net benefit for the rest of us

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.

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 be surprised.

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.

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 practical size, given people aren't robots and losing even a couple people before leaving the breeding pool would be very bad. That was a fundamentally different study though, looking at long term, self sufficiency. This one seems more focused on an Antarctica like outpost that would be able to cycle people in and out, and not establishing a full on colony.

Antarctica like outpost that would be able to cycle people in and out, and not establishing a full on colony.

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.

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 https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2820/how-big-would-a-manned-ascent-stage-for-mars-need-to-be

here's no reason you couldn't bring the return vehicle with you

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.

I mean, they will probably be relying on many unammed missions that deliver payloads to deliver all the construction material for the outpost before sending any people. While you're at it you could send the return craft too.

Most of the weight is fuel/propellant, which is why most Mars mission plans have you manufacture propellant on-site. An empty fuel tank and some engines isn't that heavy. Especially if, as you say, you're able to reuse your lander. Anyway, everything you bring has weight. The issue is, how much and can you budget for it?

If your looking for somewhere to save weight, imo start by getting rid of the astronauts and all their associated life support and living space. Bonus - robots don't even need frivolous luxuries like getting to return home.

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.

They need Ice Cube incase there is a ghost on mars

We can't even look after earth. Why are we trying to colonise another planet??

I hate to be a hater but this is quite possibly the most depressing outlook on life there is. Its like saying "we cant even be proper hunter gathers. Why are me trying this farming thing". Is it not in human nature to climb one mountain just to look to the next?

We can't even look after earth.

You seem to have answered your own question.

There is nothing short of the moon falling to the Earth that can make Mars a more viable place for humans than the Earth.

Well that's a reason.

At the moment with current technology, colonising other planets in the solar system is unsustainable without a lot of effort from earth so I doubt anything will come out of it in the near term.

No colonising please. Leave that nonsense to the Age of Sail. By all means, have a science outpost but no permanent and growing settlements, no terraforming, no farming, no mining. We have our own planet and other worlds are not our "manifest destiny to conquer". We must be the Watchers, not the Contangion. Humanity should go to the stars to explore but not to destroy it in our image. Create any permanent settlements on Mars and wars and misery will soon follow.

You can't stop it. Not only because of the resources but also as a way of continuing our existence. It's just a matter of time.

Watcher of what? It's a dead planet

Humans could be about to ruin whatever was supposed to survive on Mars in a couple million of years. We've disrupted our own planet, and are about to destroy another one. And honestly, we're not all that great as a species.