L5

> making interaction between habitat residents and Earthbound
residents > easier which has implications in an integrated information
economy.

I'm not quite clear on what exactly you're envisioning here. Some
people have floated the proposal that orbital habitats will be a
nirvana for information workers doing contract work for clients on Earth.

I don't buy those scenarios, because I go by the rule of thumb that
anything that can be done on Earth can be done cheaper than in oribt.
Orbital Habitats will excel in specializing in goods and services that
cannot be done on Earth. I don't see guys sitting around coding all
day in orbit being a competitive nitch compared to guys sitting around
and coding all day in Mumbai.

In fact, I would think that all sorts of support work will be
"off-shored" to Earth - such as accounting, payroll, info. processing,
etc.

In these cases I don't see a communications lag being a value killer.

TangoMan