A team of computational social scientists at George Mason University has found via simulations that 22 people is the minimum number needed to start a human colony on Mars. The group has posted a paper describing their simulation on the arXiv preprint server.
For me it is the terminology. I thought colonisation was the long term goal of staying more permanently vs a mission which is for a finite period such as this simulation. Had not seen the 28 year limit which makes it more a mission than colonisation. Happy to be corrected.
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