Would 14,760 people be enough to start a new world on a resource abundant planet?

Question

Would it? For those of you worried, this isn't a homework assignment, I'm just an astrobiology geek and I'm interested in what you guys might think. The number I made up came from 82 carrier ships, holding 180 people each, on arrival.

Answer 1

You could start with just two if you don't mind a bit of inbreeding. Even 100 should have enough diversity.

Answer 2

All I needed to populate Vega for light years to come, was a mere 588 souls, with 2/3 of them being women.  Oh, and don't forget to send a ship full of painkillers....it took us 15 light years for us to receive one single epidural!!!

Answer 3

well that varys.

First of all what are the living conditions of the planet and if they are compititors wether they be animal species or whatever then how much of a threat are they.

If your living with good living conditions for human survival and no serious compition then maybe only like 10 people (at least 3 women )should do the trick maybe even less possibly.  Also what kind of technology would they be carrying with them and  also  what are there knowledges of  the type land or world they are moving to. How well they can adapt to change. Also how well would these  people be able to stablize themselves, If they are living together and then they fight with each other and divide and they have other compitition and lets say they were a another creature that can compete with humans on our level then we would be divided. How well are our hunting and fighting tactics, doctrines and what not, Our culture and what they value and the morales of a culture reflect alot on wether a peoples will be able to adapt well, advance  in many ways as well as scientifically.

Also one type of culture might be better for living in the cold enviorments then another. like if you got a Iniut culture people to live in the sahara it would be extremely difficult for survival.

but if you got people who were egyptian based culture then they would be a ble to survive easier.

Answer 4

Interesting Q..   I would think that within a few years, let's say 500, that you would end up with say 100 cities, and 25% of the population outside of cities such as farming and the like.  In another 500 years those figures would increase to 250 cities and 60% outside of cities.  The population increase would be slow to start as the people would be bringing traditions and lots of schools of thought with them.  These traditions would be outdated in 2 generations and new prejudices would then enter the sceen.  Being afraid to travel to new territories, people would war over the land.  Within the first millenium you would find 5% in charge,  20% in direct chain of command, 35% in the middle, and the rest in slavery.    Old European settlements lasted for many 100s of years with much fewer populations than you are starting with.  You find heavy similarities in facial features and body types still today.  Seems like I remember something about Mosses had around 1 million people but only 13 families.  Used to be real common to marry a niece or cousin.  When you mix close relatives, you enhance the good traits as well as the bad.  Mixing too close for many generations is when you get the genetic disorders.

Answer 5

Yes. For a large period of early human history, there were only 10,000 people. When agriculture was developed, there were more, and more with the industrial revolution. It's more than enough to populate and run a planet, as long as the planet is big enough. There wouldn't be a problem with inbreeding unless, you know, they were into that sort of thing. It would also be enough to live through any initial hardships.

Answer 6

Well, if there is no earthly environment, oxygen, water and other necessary resources for human life, any amount of people would not be enough to start a new world in that planet of yours!

Answer 7

On a resource abundant planet, wouln't Adam Smith and Eve Jones do the trick?

Answer 8

At one point in out history, about 150,000 years ago, the human race was down to less 5,000 people on the entire planet.  We made a pretty come back, so three times that many would be more than enough.