Here are some thought I had regarding your comments, which are being taken simply as examples of legitimate proplems with this colonization plan
Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade & quoting Tom Kalbfus:
"You simply have a traditional nuclear family. One parent does most of the Mission Work while the other raises the children."
Okay, that might work. Sending half your population off to Mars just to be nannies for the first thirty years might make it hard to recruit bodies though. Can Mr. or Mrs. Mom do a little work outside of the home or shall we only recruit the heirs of June Cleaver and Carol Brady?
Issues of childcare would be very important in such a colony. With such a small population base (even accounting for immigration) it will be important that the children grow up to be well adjusted, well educated, productive adults.
As a result of this and the small population of workers in general, I would expect that schooling/group-childcare would actually start fairly early, possibly even while the children are babies. (Speaking out of personal experience, we had my son in a good daycare/preschool during the day starting at less than 6 mos.). This gathering of children into school groups would mean that (just like the real world) there is no reason that both parents cannot be involved in 'mission work' as long as childcare is the 'mission work' of some of the colonists.
Additionally, if group childcare was planned for origninally, having a couple of well trained, high quality pre-elementary teachers in your original colony roster would be easy. Many of the problems and concerns that people have with very young children who have to spend a great deal of time in daycare would be offset by high quality, involved caretakers and the involvement of the colony community as a whole. Future caretaker needs (as children grow older and need more specialized schooling) would, I would think, be best met by manipulating the priorities/incentives used to regulate future immigration.
"Initially the first 100 hundred will have their own children."
Great, 50 men and 50 women, carefully selected, pair bonded in advance, and contracted to produce 3 children within 10 years. And it will all work like clockwork. Right. Care to guess what the current divorce rate after only 7 years is? Care to guess what the psycological pressures of being 1 of only 100 people on Mars will be like?
The psychological pressures of living in a very small, very isolated colony would indeed be a very pressing concern. I would expect that given the rigid arrangements being used with this colony, that the selection process would include rigourous phychological screening which would
help deal with the problem. Including a solid psychologist and plans for 'alone' space and other recreational space would also be important.
Two other factors that I would expect to play a role would be the psych makeup of the original colonists and the concept of community. As the select few who get the opportunity to found a new colony, the first generation is likely to be made up of people who are willing to work hard and make sacrifices to make the colony a success. I would expect this to extend to a great many things...a 'greater than normal' willingness to compromise and work out differences, the desire to work together to make the colony work, even the willingness to produce and care for children with a partner that you may or may not be emotionally or physically attached to (after all, the odds of finding fifty pairs with the exact set of skills needed is likely small).
Developing a strong, involved but flexible sense of community would also be of assistance with type of colony. With such a small colony, a community will exist one way or another as everyone will know each other at least peripheraly and everyone's work is likely to impact on everyone elses life to one extent or another. If a healthy sense of community can be built it would be a powerful force for encouraging the growth and survival of the colony. A strong community could help keep crime rates under control as the colony grows, it could also (especially when smaller) act as a support group if any of the pairs really have problems. And even once the colony has outgrown its early everybody knows each other and helps each other out mode of operation, I can think of worse social foundations for a growing society.
(snip of further "assembly line" style procreation efforts and blue-sky societal assumptions; all colonists are heterosexual, no murders or accients, everyone happy with their limited choice of mates, etc.)
<SNIP>
Wow. Nearly 800 people in 90 years not counting the almost totally unused 10,000 frozen embryos or any further immigration. And of course everyone on Mars fits the colony's master procreational blueprint perfectly, happily goosestepping along producing 3 children within 10 years in each marriage, never divorcing, and always happy with their limited choice of mates.
Larsen
Accidents and psych issues developing over time would be an issue with any colonial endeavor and I think you are absolutley right that a colony this size would be especially vulnerable to anything significant going wrong. With that few people all you may need to kill off everyone with a given life critical skillset is one illness or a landslide or a simple accident. That is one of the reasons that I think continued immegration and contact with a homeworld would be absolutely vital in a colony of this size. It is certainly possible they would make it, but without the influx of additional people to deal with unexpected losses and the need for an increasingly deep pool of skills as the colony grows I wouldn't count on them becoming a viable colony on their own.
If they truly have a very large pool of frozen embrios available to them, then I think you also have a point about the rate with which that resource is being used. Care would have to be taken not to overwhelm their childcare capacity, but introducing having each couple produce 4 children in ten years (three their own and one implanted) would grow the population much quicker while introducing a certain amount of new genetic diversity without relying on immigration.
Just my thoughts, take 'em or leave 'em.
