A team of computational social scientists at George Mason University has found via simulations that 22 people is the minimum number needed to start a human colony on Mars. The group has posted a paper describing their simulation on the arXiv preprint server.
If they take along artificial wombs and artificial seeders, wouldn’t it be able to thrive with even fewer people? I assume this is based on natural procreation, not artificial…
If those fewer people are specialists in 3 different fields each and are fine with working 16 hour days, then yes.
well it’s not as if there’s much else to do on mars
You really shouldn’t work more than 6 hours a day when every single little mistake you make on any mundane task could literally kill everyone.
good point