The human population might have been reduced to as few as 1000 individuals at one point:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487

Follow up work has shown that result is a statistical artifact/does not replicate [1,2,3].

[1]https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article-abstract/229/1/iya...

[2]https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/42/2/msaf041/8005733

[3]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.25.586640v1

Are there two proposed bottlenecks, one at 900 kya and another at 70 kya? I'd only really heard about the latter.

The paper linked in that post proposes a bottleneck at 900Kya in the ancestors of all modern humans. There is a bottleneck associated with the migration out of Africa and the peopling of the world that many populations have, but not all. Based on genetic data the timing is between 100-50Kya, with a lot of the uncertainty coming from converting generation times to years (i.e. how many years on average between parents and offspring). This is a nice reference: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature213...

I searched for "minimum space colony size," and the numbers are all over the place. Some says as low as 50 and others are over 40k.

That's a problem that's easy to fix with a fridge and a bunch of embryos. They take practically no space.

The question is how well will they hold up for 400 years?

Well, that, and how do you ensure that the people 400 years from now would know what they are for or how to implant them?

Lots of unknowns. Would make for an interesting story though

> how do you ensure that the people 400 years from now would know what they are for or how to implant them?

A ship travelling at 0.01c for 400 years could get 4 ly away. They'd still be able to be coached. More likely: their computers would still be able to be updated.

Of course there is this thing is that while they were coasting faster technology was developed and another ship arrived way before them, with better computers, engines, everything.

So far the only known technology to bring embryos to life is through alive female host, so you still need healthy, and on top of that, willing population to use embryos.

... Yes?

The question specifically was:

> Is this enough for a healthy breeding population?

Through the use of technology, this limit can be completely sidestepped.

It should be, but you can't be picky.

most importantly, will we carry 1000 of the best minds of our generation, 1000 hairdressers/insurance salesmen/management consultants or 1000 billionaires and their direct families?

I vote 1000 billionaires and family. Then the rest of us can get to work repairing the damage they've done.

Downvoters apparently still sore about the Golgafrinchan B Ark incident.

Worked out well enough for the House of Habsburg. ;-)

I mean you could make sure to limit couplings to 3rd cousins and beyond which eliminates like 99.5% of genetic problems for many generations,having an even more diverse starting group also will help, and if you really wanted to make sure you could also send along some eggs and sperm to throw in the gene pool at times.

bruh noah did it with 2

There were 8: Noah, his wife, their three sons (Shem, Ham, and Japheth), and their three wives. If so, there must have been a whole of inbreeding in later generations.

Aside: The biblical story of the Ark and the flood in ripped off wholesale from Sumerian and Akkadian narratives.

You mean God sent word to the Sumerians and Akkadians !

He also told them the story of Moses being found in the reeds, for them to pass on.

Facts?