HONEYCOMB
Minimum Viable Population Group Dynamics
When creating an artificial home away from Earth, one of the main concerns is making sure that the colony is sustainable in terms of population. For the Honeycomb Space Settlement, what we are most interested in is how many people are needed to keep the population on the rise, ensuring the survival of the human species. The two most important aspects of a viable population are maintaining genetic diversity and making sure that most of the inhabitants can survive potential disasters (earthquakes, volcano eruptions etc. on Earth, explosions, system malfunctions, and collisions with asteroids in space). When it comes to genetic diversity, estimates of the minimum viable population vary between 150 (John Moore, 2002) and 40,000 (Gardner-O'Kearnym, 2014). Although social engineering can probably bring these numbers, 40,000 is still too much for our small colony. Therefore, simply relying on the colonists to perpetuate the species is not enough. One solution is using in vitro fertilization using frozen genetic material acquired from people on Earth before launch. This would accelerate the population growth, effectively solving any issues related to gene diversity and is easily achieved with today’s technology. As soon as the population reaches the correct number, in vitro fertilization can be abandoned and reproduction can carry on naturally. The use of genetic engineering means that the settlement can start with as few as 80100 people on board and still survive for many generations. Assuming a rate of growth of 0.012 (1.2%, slightly larger than the one on Earth)[5], the population will be reaching the required 40,000 in a little over 500 years. By the 1545th year, the population will have reached 10 billion people (assuming constant growth which should never happen in real life – the growth is most likely to slow down with time, as seen on Earth).
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