A photo from open sources
Once, either from idle curiosity, or from necessity, or immediately for both reasons, but the human species will have to leave planet Earth and begin the journey to the stars. Before by making this historic journey we will need to consider many factors.
For example, how fast can we get to that planet, which we want to colonize, or how many people will be required put on a spaceship so this opportunity really could succeed?
And although previous studies on this topic, one of which was, for example, in 2002, argued that to start a new the human race will need only 150 people, a new study by John Moore of the University of Florida claims that the number of people needed to settle another the planet should be at least 10,000, and best of all – 40,000.
So why are there so many people? The first thing you should pay our attention is that even the closest to us the star system, Proxima Centauri, is at a distance of more four light years from Earth. Current level of technology development it will take us thousands of years to get there to get there.
It also means that we need to build such spaceship on board which will be born and die several generations who will not even see the planet that humanity will want to colonize, not to mention the planet where do they come from. 150 people may actually be able to an excessively low genetic variety will greatly increase the risk level of various genetic diseases and abnormalities that would jeopardize the whole colonization mission.
In his study, Moore points out that a higher number people, at least 10,000, will be able to increase the overall level a viable diversity in the gene pool of travelers.
The second reason why space colonization is required many people are at risk of various disasters. Will definitely be diseases, technological disasters, maybe newcomers will come for new slaves, in general, we must consider each of these risks, because each of them can significantly reduce the population space colonists. The more people go to colonization, the less catastrophic will be the consequences of their loss.
How did Moore come to these numbers? As part of his research, he used a computer model invented by William Gardner O’Kearney, an archaeologist from Portland, Oregon, USA). The algorithm of this computer model allows a selection of various events that may occur during space travel.
Having determined the initial population size and having painted it, for example, for a period of 300 years (30 generations), the algorithm runs every number (number) 10 times and displays the average the result of the residual number of people with one or another simulation models of the development of events.
It should be noted that, first of all, this calculation model allows you to consider the consequences of those unexpected events that can happen in space. So, the results show that with the presence of an initial 40,000 colonists, genetic diversity will be 100 percent. However, even with only 10 000 people, this genetic diversity remains at full acceptable level.
The model shows that in the case of events that may affect by population size, both of these numbers allow you to save enough colonists to maintain genetic diversity. If the initial number of colonists will be less than 10,000, then this significantly reduce people’s chances of survival and development on another the planet.
Colonization
