Re: RE: starship-design: Numbers needed for Colonization (was Antiproton-Cataly

["Christoph Kulmann" <guderiak@hotmail.com>]

>
>In a message dated 4/28/98 3:01:08 AM, f96bni@student.tdb.uu.se wrote:
>

>>SO, which are the two main criteria???
>>
>>First: We must bring enough INDIVIDUALS to ensure that we have enough
>>"genetic diversity", to protect vs Inbreeding and such things.
>>Unfortunatly my Biological/medical knowledge is way to poor to know 
have
>>many this is, maybe someone else knows??? 

==> In wildlife biology, it is generally agreed that any population must 
consist of more than 200 individuals to remain healthy. And if there are 
less than 50 individuals left, it's most likely that the population is 
doomed to extinction.
Note: This is not true for zoos. There are cases in which a whole 
species (e.g. the onyx antelope) has been successfully recreated on the 
basis of only 9 specimen.

So I think a colonization program starting with 10,000 people is a very 
safe proposal. In the Alpes or Pyrenees, there are mountain villages 
with less than 1,000 inhabitants, and it is supposed that at least a few 
of them have an uninterupted existence since prehistoric days; this is 
especially the case for the Western Pyrenees, where there are still 
Basque villages which can hardly be reached by foot or horse.

But if you start a colony of 10,000 on the surface of a planet, it would 
still need support from Earth (at least one ship every 50 years), 
because it is unlikely that a small community can repair or rebuild 
vital large scale equipment (say a fusion power plant) on their own.

In addition, in both scenario 2
>>and 3, we must also bring enough of all SUPORTING life-forms to ensure 
the
>>same diversity.

==> Right, but don't start to clone your cattle...

Christoph


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com