A team of computational social scientists at George Mason University has found, through simulations, that 22 is the minimum required to establish a human colony on Mars. The group published an article describing their simulations on the preprint server. arXiv.

As people around the world contemplate the possibility of one day sending humans to Mars and later establishing a colony, scientists are looking for ways to overcome the obstacles to achieving these goals. One factor to consider, according to the team, is how many people can support a colony on Mars and what kind of people are needed.

To find possible answers, the team created a model simulating a Martian colony; this model focused specifically on how many individuals are needed to establish a viable colony and the traits most likely to make such a colony successful. To this end, they used data from past initiatives, such as questionnaires filled out by groups on the International Space Station or by those who have lived for months in cramped neighborhoods in the Arctic. They also sought to explain known personality traits such as resilience to stress, social skills, and degree of neuroticism.

The research team ran five simulations, each simulating 28 Earth years of the colony’s life, varying between sessions, such as the number of people in the colony on Mars. They learned that the minimum number of people is 22. They also found that people with pleasant personalities were, unsurprisingly, more likely to not only survive such a mission but thrive and ensure the survival of the colony. On the other hand, they found that people with neurotic personalities were more likely to fail their tasks and die earlier than others, jeopardizing the success of the task as a whole. Source