Never assume. The craft can take you and 10,000 to the planet. So what's your plan to choose the best to create your ideal world? And, who not to take.
I tend to think it should be set up like a military action. So the government would have a commander. But there should be a citizen Council to keep him in check and if necessary overrule the commander say a 2/3 majority? During the flight the council would only have the power to replace the commander. This is for efficiency.
You'd want to send a survey/advance team first. Probably decades or more before your 10,000 colonists arrive. That team would be in charge of identifying the best location to establish a colony and that in turn implies they; - get a thorough understanding of the local ecology and how to integrate human agriculture and domesticated terran species into the local ecology while also identifying and categorizing toxic/dangerous local lifeforms. Test farms then need to be established. - mineralogical surveys, you need to identify where the best sources of all key minerals needed to maintain an industrial society including rare earths are located. And the first priority won't be the size of the deposits it will be how easily accessible they are. You want surface deposits of iron ore, copper, tin, zinc, aluminum etc. Those first elements are particularity needed and a few thousand tons of refined ore equivalent on the surface will be more important than a million tons buried deep. Then you have to prepare the mining sites even if you don't actually install mining equipment. - transport, you have to build basic roads and bridges linking your farm and mining sites. - other infrastructure like a landing field, warehouses for storing equipment when it arrives, a medical facility, power plant and other key buildings - etc etc In other words lots to do before the first colonist even sets a foot on the ground.
Colonist usually hack it out of the wilderness. The first thing is availability of air to breathe and water to drink. Then food to eat. What is the ideal temperature for humans? What kind of enemies both large and very small? How will the land be divided? These things need to be worked out.
Unless they study, plan and prepare before landing a sizable population on the planet the mission run a grave risk of turning into humanities first interstellar Donner Party. How do you know your plants will thrive or that the local ecosystem is compatible with human life. How do you repair or build desperately needed extra equipment if you don't know where the resources required to make them are located and what can be extracted easily. How do you even transport them to where they're needed? As for 'hacking out of the wilderness'? European settlers took everything they needed with them and totally dependent on re-supply from home of products they couldn't make locally. Even the first western colonies in America nearly starved to death/failed because of their total reliance on supplies and equipment sent from home. And that was just people settling into climates and ecologists extremely similar if not identicle to the ones they left behind in Europe a few weeks sail away. This 'colony' is being established 14 light years away! If something breaks it will take more than 28 years for a replacement to arrive (probably something closer to 60 years or more). And that last time period is being generous since it assumes the use of a drive near the upper limits of what can be achieved any science based propulsion system that can be imagined today.
Everything needed by the colonies was already here. If mankind can't survive on a planet without constant supply from the mother planet the colony is doomed to failure. As I said before 10,000 is too many. And also a research team needs to be landed before any other colonist to determine survivability. The colony must become self supporting in a short amount of time.
Read my post original again. I didn't say the colony would need constant resupply from home. In fact I pointed out that would be impossible (without some pulp fiction Sc Fi space drive). What I said was that in order to self supporting and self sustaining a certain amount of panning, research and preparation would be needed first, before the main body of colonists landed. I just listed some of the stuff that would need to be in place before you started bringing in large numbers of colonists. As I've already noted if you can't be confident your crops will grow or that you can access all the resources you'll need to expand and prosper your gambling with the lives of everyone involved. There are simply too many fail points in a modern community where things can go wrong if the groundwork isn't done first. So unless the plan is just to take 10,000 modern humans, dump them on a planet and leave them to 'learn' how to 'survive that's exactly what you have to do, plan and prepare. Because if you don't in a few generations all you'll have left, if your lucky (it is an alien ecology after all) are scattered groups of survivors living of the land in quasi neolithic conditions using the broken remains of whatever equipment they can carry as hand tools until they eventually figure out how make stone axes again.
I read this several times and passed on participating. I obviously changed my mind. I'd like to live anywhere on any planet in any galaxy in any era as long as murderers, rapists, pedophiles and Trump supporters aren't there. I don't care about anything else at this point. I am in IL and it's still too close to the Orange Stain. No thanks and he can keep all his cult apologists.
Amen. I think this thread is really about society. None of the technical side is possible, and our "isolated groups of humans" experiments here on Earth have been disasters. So all that's left to discuss is who one would invite on a crazy, probably suicidal adventure. Maybe I WOULD take the Trump family and their best buddies! At least Earth would be better off.
Since I haven't dumped 10,000 people on a planet yet I'm cool. I have been considering a spacecraft that can support life on its own. I know green peppers grow under cheap artificial light and so do citronella plants. A self supporting ship could orbit. But it would take quite a big ship to support 10,000. I still think 10,000 is too many. I would trade 1/2 of the people for a couple head of cattle and 3 goats.
Yummy, green pepper and citronella salad three times a day for decades! Ultimately though your suggestion amounts to the same thing as my suggestion. I said an advanced team was needed to survey and prep the site. Your suggesting the ship arrives but that everybody stays on board until the survey and prep work has been completed (by an advance team). Six of one, half dozen of the other.
1) No criminal record 2) No health issues 3) DNA testing to screen out anyone with bad genes (ie lung cancer, breast cancer, schizophrenia, Tay-Sachs, CF, Huntington's, etc etc) 4) Psychological testing 5) Emotional testing Representative democracy. Since it wouldn't be a nation, a unitary-State is out of the question. Perhaps a confederation or federation. Probably a confederation since there'd be no war, no need for diplomacy, treaties, international trade, etc etc. Only real need would be to coin money. Break them down into 10 districts of 1,000 each and let them run with it. I don't know. Might wanna live there a while to figure it out. Maybe after a decade or two, kick some ideas around, create a short list from that, do some round-robin voting elimination and then vote on it the final two choices.
I would definitely select good stock for colonist. And it must be agreed that no one comes back to earth after setting foot on the planet. Or on the orbiting ship for a quarantine period of some time. Being a person that thinks man is an unruly beast rules must be set up from the start. Land claims need to be filed and legal. Also mining claims and the establishment of towns. And I want a Cantina.
