This question is directed at a habitat scenario which is between the
two extremes of a small, specialized base of a few thousands people
where everyone has gone through extensive mission training and has
been extensively vetted by procedures and testing on earth, and the
other extreme of a society of millions in a habitat which has
complete labor mobility and people can have multiple job choices.

What happens when someone loses their edge, perhaps their
professionalism, are terminated for misconduct, or incompetence and
there is no other job for their skills.

Do you think that the employer, or employers, will keep people at
all costs, considering that there is a huge investment involved in
getting people up to the habitat?

What happens to the employee when there is no longer an opportunity
to earn a livelihood at their chosen career? If they are a citizen
of the habitat, does the choice become one of taking any job
available or leaving the habitat for earth? Who pays for departure?

For that matter, what do we do with people who don't like living up
there and want to leave?

I'm assuming that the cost of transporting the employee and family
is borne by the employer because it is expensive and the employee
agrees to a period of stay.

At this middle stage of development, I don't believe that every
person going up, will get the extensive screening the present day
astronauts get. It'll probably be more akin to modern hiring
practices and we all know that mistakes are made in that area.

I just got to thinking that this middle stage, this adolesense, will
be awkward because it won't any longer be mission specific, but it
won't yet have transitioned into a multifaceted society. I'm sure
that there'll be other growing pains as well.

Whilst it may be expensive to send people back to earth if they can't do
they're job it would be worth it as you really don't want an incompetant person
up there.

Later on I see it being much the same type of job market as on earth.

--- victoriatangoman wrote:

On Monday, July 8, 2002, at 03:14 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> What happens to the employee when there is no longer an opportunity
> to earn a livelihood at their chosen career? If they are a citizen
> of the habitat, does the choice become one of taking any job
> available or leaving the habitat for earth? Who pays for departure?
>
What happens now on Earth? Same answer.

> For that matter, what do we do with people who don't like living up
> there and want to leave?

If they want to leave, then I suggest they do so. For the first few
habitats, they will probably get a paid, one-way ticket to Earth. After
that, people will probably have to figure out how to move themselves,
just like they do on Earth today.

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html