Reply to post: 600,000 in 100 years

Dome, sweet dome: UAE mulls Martian city here on Earth ahead of Red Planet colonization

A K Stiles
Coat

600,000 in 100 years

Ignoring moral issues and tech hurdles for radiation, shelter building etc;

If you sent 200 women (plus maybe 20 men / lots of varied sperm for genetic diversity), with each of them having 4 children, and each subsequent generation having 4 children (per person, so possibly 8 per woman at 50/50 female/male birth rate - or selective breeding for majority female offspring) you would need 4 generations of offspring to get to a population around 600,000.

Your first generation could begin to be born almost as soon as you arrive, and then average 25 years old per generation, you would be at 600,000 around 75 years in. Obviously it's a captive breeding programme and you're expecting people whose grandparents haven't even been conceived yet to follow your demands for procreation in a confined environment, but it *could* be done mathematically, if not ethically.

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