Its a numbers game. When man spread from Africa, through Asia, across the land bridges and into North and South America and Australia, there was a chance that those first folks would die out. Why, you ask, when humans are so widespread today? Because the numbers were low. Sure, humans are wonderful when it comes to filling niches in the environment. We're probably the most widely spread land mammal in existence on earth today. We live and lets face it thrive in diverse environments - deserts to jungles, forests to plains, and from sub freezing temperatures to those close to the boiling point of water. Its a human 'feature' that we do it so well. We've even managed to move two species of domesticated animals along with us - dogs being the second most widely distributed land mammal behind humans, and chickens of all things being the third most widely distributed land animal. But, I digress, we're here to talk about why you want a large number of people when you colonize places far more foreign than anything we've colonized to date.
Humanity actually had it easy in the past. No where we went in the great burst of colonization starting in the 1400's didn't have humans. Regardless of where we went and how we treated our fellow man (and yeah, some places we treated them like absolute shyte) there were fellow men there. Meaning that in a pinch you could keep things going by interbreeding with the locals. Even if this were officially frowned upon by society back home in the mother country - or by the local culture as well, you could still keep the colony going without an influx of fresh colonists from back home.
Space on the other hand, lacks locals we can breed with to keep the colony going. Sure, a lunar colony (Selenites, by the way, not Loonies) or a martian colony can and most likely will get fresh influxes of colonists who are looking for the same thing immigrants have looked for in all the years that mankind has wandered the planet - new opportunity, new resources, or just new hills to look over and see whats on the other side. Or, as has also been common in human history, as a dumping ground for what society sees as undesirables - the US state of Georgia and the country of Australia come to mind as shining examples of penal colonies. And local shipping, which is what the Moon and Mars would be, is probably going to be an order of magnitude cheaper than say Alpha Centauri will be when we finally finagle FTL into working.
Its that colony on AC though that will need the bodies. We're going to handwave the FTL requirements for this discussion. Assuming that they work (with all the freight that goes with assumption) lets say we've figured out how to cross the 4.7 light years between here and there in a reasonable amount of time (even if it takes say, a year to cover a light year, that, given humanities historical speed of travel seems reasonable to me). So, a, heh, five year mission, to set up the first extrasolar human colony. That's if the ship is going on a one way trip - ten years for the crew if they're pulling the return to Earth as well. We've got to look at how we're going to feed people in space for ten years - I've got an idea for that as well, but it will probably be the topic of a future post. Here's the model for now - a large colony ship with a crew of between 500 and a 1000 personnel. That's the ship, not the colony itself. For the colony, I'd say a minimum of 2000 people, with additional genetic material brought along to increase the genetic diversity of the colony. I can hear everyone out there now - how are you going to feed 3000 people over the course of five years? The ship would have to be huge. Not if you put the majority of people in cryogenic suspension - handwavium, remember?
Why so many people? Genetic diversity. Even if the colony ship makes perfect round trips, you're only going to be adding new people to the colony every ten years - and genetic drifting can take place in a very short time in a limited gene pool. Even with new genetic material every ten years, if you start with a low number of initial members of the gene pool you're only increasing the chance of a bad mutation taking place. Higher the number in the initial pool, better chance of keeping things semi normal.
So much for genetics, here's today's snippet -
Davidson
floated over to where I was by the main console.
“Pete, got a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“How serious were you about having a
meal ready for Mick and Jonathan?”
“Well, about as serious as I could
be, why?”
“I can pop up to the active commons
and grab a couple four trays if you want while they’re still coming in –
shouldn’t take more than about ten-fifteen minutes. We can pop the trays in the warmer over there
to keep them hot until they’re done unsuiting.”
“Works for me,” I said, motioning
her to stay in place for a minute and keying my mike. “Hey Mick, you’ve got a guardian angel here
on the docks – what’cha want for lunch?”
“Cheeseburger sounds good.”
“Make that two,” Jonathan seconded.
“Right,” I said. I looked at Davidson. “I’d say just grab six burgers and fixings
and bring them down here – unless anyone else wants something different,” I
threw out at the compartment at large. No one responded in the negative.
“Be back soonish,” Clara said,
scooting up the shaft towards the active lounge.
“Just don’t bring back any quiche,”
I said grinning at her back.
“Like I’ve never heard that joke
before,” she said, voice fading in the distance. She returned a few minutes later, tray’s in
tow in a hot box. She slid the hot box
into the warmer, and tossed a case of fruit drink against the wall as
well.
“Mmmm, burgers and bug juice,” Jane
said, opening the case.
“Yeah, it was what they had,” Clara
said, “Has anyone ever figured out what the colors are supposed to correspond
to fruit wise?”
“Whoa there young lady, slow that
roll. Bug juice comes in colors. The flavor is sweet. The colors do not correspond with any fruit
flavor known to man. It has been this
way since time immemorial,” Bob said, snagging a container of red.
“It is an ancient mystery that we
will never know the answer to,” intoned Jane in a sepulchral tone.
About that time, the inner hatch
popped open and Mick and Jonathan stepped into the bay.
“The heroes return! Let us celebrate with libations of bug juice!”
Mick looked at me.
“What the fuck, over,” he asked, looking at the lot of us
like we had lost our minds.
“Sorry dude,” I said pulling on gloves to help him unsuit, “you’d
have had to be here to get it.”
Jane was hanging there laughing, and the others were
chuckling as they moved in to help him and Tony get out of the suits. The air packs were racked and connected to
the air system so they could be purged and refilled overnight.
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