ThinksMarkedly wrote:Jonathan_S wrote:Well they were certainly intended to be self-sufficient. And the ones that survived until the point interstellar trade became economically certainly proved that they had been self-sufficient.
But there was probably at least one failed colony where, despite their plans, they weren't able to remain self-sufficient and simply died off before hyperspace travel became safe.
Well, yeah!
Which is why a colony expedition should mitigate those issues by not waking people up until the food production facilities and industry is up and running to a self-sustaining level. They should wake up people in phases, those who are needed to set those up, and carefully examine the surplus and backup plans before moving to the next phase.
The expeditions that wake up everyone within a month of arriving aren't very well-planned.
Calvin's expedition, for having no suitable diversion plans, was very poorly planned. Why the hell did they even decelerate into the system? Grayson was another nut-job. Manticore almost failed over the Plague Years. And the New Berlin colony prior to Gustav Anderman is another example. Darwin is almost surely rolling in his tomb for those people having survived...
Beowulf and Haven on the other hand appear to have been very well-planned and successful at that.
Calvin's expedition was also one of the first handful of expeditions (iirc #2 or 3), and it was definitely stretching the tech to go that far.