Do you know any possible problems a human colony on another planet could run into?

Question

I already know that there could be food and water shortages. Plus there's always some undetected life form that could terrorize the colonials, but I want to get more options. If you could give some ideas, that would be great. I'll try to think more about it. I have some more ideas already.

Answer 1

As you said, food and water and other life forms. There's also under exposure to the sun, overexposure, temperatures being unfit for humans (Mercury being far too hot and Saturn far too cold for example), problems setting up an atmosphere, very rare supplies from Earth due to cost and time restraints, too high or low gravity and muscle/developmental problems because of that, health problems from unknown things or dust if it's a dusty place (IIRC there were some concerns about inhaled moon dust on one of the moon missions).

Answer 2

running out of the supply of oxygen

meteors

space suit problems

acidic gases

temperature changes

getting lost

Read the short story Cold Equations. That might give you a few ideas.

Answer 3

There could be an issue with the lack of sunlight.  People don't often think about it but the sun is one of our greatest natural resources and one of the only (if not the only) natural way(s) to get Vit. D which has been shown to help with mental well-being.

Other issues could be problems with the gravity/artifical gravity.  Or the people starting to feel isolated causing them to turn paranoid.

Hope that helps.