Establishing a human settlement on Mars is an incredibly complex engineering problem. The inhospitable nature of the Martian environment requires any habitat to be largely self-sustaining. Beyond mining a few basic minerals and water, the colonizers will be dependent on Earth resupply and replenishment of necessities via technological means, i.e., splitting Martian water into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel. Beyond the technical and engineering challenges, future colonists will also face psychological and human behavior challenges. Our goal is to better understand the behavioral and psychological interactions of future Martian colonists through an Agent-Based Modeling (ABM simulation) approach. We seek to identify areas of consideration for planning a colony as well as propose a minimum initial population size required to create a stable colony. Accounting for engineering and technological limitations, we draw on research regarding high performing teams in isolated and high stress environments (ex: submarines, Arctic exploration, ISS, war) to include the 4 basic personality types within the ABM. Interactions between agents with different psychological profiles are modeled at the individual level, while global events such as accidents or delays in Earth resupply affect the colony as a whole. From our multiple simulations and scenarios (up to 28 Earth years), we found that an initial population of 22 was the minimum required to maintain a viable colony size over the long run. We also found that the agreeable personality type was the one more likely to survive. We find, contrary to other literature, that the minimum number of people with all personality types that can lead to a sustainable settlement is in the tens and not hundreds.

翻译：在火星上建立人类定居点是一个极其复杂的工程问题。火星环境的恶劣性要求任何栖息地都必须具备高度自给自足能力。除了开采少量基础矿物和水资源外，殖民者将依赖地球补给，并通过技术手段（例如将火星水分解为呼吸用氧气和燃料用氢气）补充必需品。除技术工程挑战外，未来殖民者还将面临心理与行为挑战。我们的目标是通过基于智能体建模（ABM仿真）方法，更好地理解未来火星殖民者的行为与心理交互机制。我们试图确定规划殖民地时需考虑的关键因素，并提出建立稳定殖民地所需的最小初始人口规模。在考虑工程与技术限制的前提下，我们借鉴了关于孤立高压环境（如潜艇、北极探险、国际空间站、战争）中高效团队的研究成果，将四种基本人格类型纳入ABM模型。具有不同心理特征的智能体之间的交互在个体层面进行建模，而事故或地球补给延迟等全局事件则影响整个殖民地。通过多组仿真与场景分析（最长模拟28个地球年），我们发现长期维持可行殖民地规模所需的最小初始人口为22人。同时发现，亲和性人格类型更可能存活。与其他文献结论相反，我们发现能够形成可持续定居点的所有人格类型的总人数下限为数十人而非数百人。