“It is important to realize that this is not a ‘suicide mission,'” Washington State University’s Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Arizona State University’s Paul Davies write. “The astronauts would go to Mars with the intention of staying for the rest of their lives, as trailblazers of a permanent human Mars colony.”
In a WSU news release, Davies said the concept follows the model set by past human settlements of new lands. “It would really be little different from the first white settlers of the North American continent, who left Europe with little expectation of return,” he said…
With time, a series of cave-centered biospheres could be built for the growing Martian community, with beefed-up radiation protection. “Probably several decades after the first human mission, the colony’s population might have expanded to about 150 individuals, which would constitute a viable gene pool to allow the possibility of a successful long-term reproduction program,” the researchers write. “New arrivees and possibly the use of genetic engineering would further enhance genetic variety and contribute to the health and longevity of the colonists.”
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