beccaelizabeth | (Reply)

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I think these calculations are working out genetic viability but don't allow for basic economics. If the colony is cut off from trading with a bigger population elsewhere then only 40,000 is going to have to revert to a very simple subsistence lifestyle very quickly, which means nearly all tech and knowledge will be lost within a few generations.

I don't know what the number would be for a technologically advanced society to be economically self sustaining, but I am guessing several million at least. That would be on a world with ample mineral resources and ecology that can sustain human agriculture yet somehow doesn't have a native ecology that would wipe us out with new diseases and microbes on arrival. I think it unlikely such a world could exist. Better to repair the one we have.

This might interest you: The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch