Island A

I can see that we are talking at partly crossed purposes here. The SMF I
am considering would be in Earth Orbit, be it high or low and be used as
a stepping stone to building bigger facilities. The one that you are
talking about appears to me to be a somewhat ideal one that could be
sent out on a voyage to the asteroids ( wherever they are ) in which
case yes there would have to be long stays. For the type I am talking
about fresh fruit and Vegetables would be brought up on the supply
vessels. As for financial incentives I imagine that any initial job will
be highly paid no matter how long you are up there for. Green Plants
would be nice, but in a zero G ( or almost ) environment does anyone
know what will happen to them ? I know there have been experiments on
germinating seeds, but larger plants ? ( I realise that that is a
separate discussion in itself ) Also separate quarters / bed chambers
would be nice but impractical at the beginning. Of course once the
facility is running they could expend some time on expanding the
facility so that it could incorporate these things. The first facilities
are likely to be Rough and Ready. In other words quickly built with a
minimum of comforts, just enough to get the work done with minimum
expense. They will be cramped, smelly, crowded and most likely partly
dangerous and most definitely ugly, but they will get the job done. Not
everyone will want to or be able to work in those conditions but they
will pave the way for bigger and better facilities. If we try and go
for the better facilities straight away all we will be doing is
hampering ourselves.( both mentally and financially )

There is one more advantage to the short stay that i didn't think of
before , and that is the spreading of skills and experience. If you are
up there with a small number of people for a long time, they will gain
the experience but not be able to pass it on to many people. On the
other hand if you have a large number of people who are rotating
through, your skills base will be much larger. Some of these people will
leave your company for whatever reason and go on to work for another
company and pass on this experience to them and so on. A large base of
people here on earth with the desired skills and experience ( no matter
who they work for ) would have to make colonising space easier than a
small number of people with those skills.