Selection Criteria

victoriatangoman wrote:

> We've all read reports on how selective the astronaut corps is in
> selecting their candidates, and how any health, behavior, or conduct
> problems will have an astronaut removed from launch status.
>
> So, what will the selection criteria be for the hundreds to
> thousands of new astronauts that'll be needed for the construction
> on a new habitat, staffing mining facilities, operating orbital
> transfer vehicles, building SPS, etc?

No, no, no no. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Space settlers are NOT astronauts. 'Astronauts' are just some
quasi-military bullshit that NASA made up.

> I'm very interested in how the whole civilization in space concept
> will evolve. How will decision's made in the early stages mold the
> society that follows. The reason I'm asking about the selection
> criteria is because I can foresee applications flooding in,
> especially if this becomes an international effort, and only the
> healthiest, most capable, and most intelligent individuals will be
> selected. As our adventrure continues, will these trends become self-
> reinforcing, and only the most capable and healthiest will be
> selected or will amercian-style affirmative action policies be
> applied? And because of their under-representation, or non-
> representation, will disabled people, people with a propensity to
> heart disease, diabetes, MS, parkinson's, fill in your favorite
> disease, be selected?

You're talking about immigration policy. Immigration usually
works on a points system. Got $10 million? You get 100 points.
Got MS?, -50 points; systems analyst +60 etc. etc. etc. You
adjust the points according to what the habitat needs right
now. If you've got room for 50 people, and a disabled person is
in the top 50 scorers- you let them in.

It's not 100% accurate or fair, but it's better than most
other schemes.

The policy for visitors is different of course.

> Will the astronaut selection committee be able to maintain its high
> standards as more and more astronauts are needed, and eventually
> when this selection committee morphs into an immigration department
> for the new habitat and needs to populate a whole new country, what
> will happen to the standards?

For any settlement of any reasonable size- more than
200 people or so, forget astronaut selection- that isn't
the way to go. Besides, initially fairly rich people will
be able to afford to go into space anyway- so the group
is going to be self selecting to a reasonable degree.
There's limits to how picky you can be.

> Do we replicate earth societies and give everyone a chance to go to
> live in the habitat, especially when there'll be a need for
> thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of citizens in the
> new worlds. But at the same time I can see a tremendous demand for
> this new type of immigration and the new world being able to be very
> selective in who moves in.

The difference is that building new land just costs money.
Anyone with the money can build their own habitat.

> I came across an interesting fact a few weeks ago: about 80% of
> society's medical expenses are caused by less than 10% of the
> citizenry. Chronic abusers of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, those with
> heriditary diseases, and the preemie babies and old folks kept on
> life-support for extended periods of time (although they didn't
> define the length of time referred to by "extended")

Yeah, so? After 10 years, the problems people get will develop
within the habitat. What are you gonna do, turf out anyone
who gets to 60? Kill all the preemies? You can't even screen
for all the hereditary diseases; some have multiple genes.

Tobacco you could probably ban, that might work- other drugs
and alcohol, you can try to ban... ain't gonna work, but you
could try.

Seriously, running a society of 'big enough' size, demands
concepts like taxation, democracy, health services (personally
I think that a certain level should be paid from taxation,
with extras for people with lots of money,) legal systems,
immigration, banking, defense etc. etc.

It's not that any one idea is perfect, but you need to
pick the best ones you can. You probably cannot and
should not try to fix problems by excluding problems
from the habitat- but you should impede problems
from entering where practical; but it's a trade off.
Some problems come with solutions to other problems.

--
- Ian Woollard (ian.woollard@...)

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding
technological civilization?"
- Gerard O'Neill