  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.
