Selection Criteria

>> 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?

Actually, I think that there is a market for low-g space colonies for
the disabled. After tourism, I think this will be next market to be
exploited. My wife has MS and is confined to a wheel chair. Living in
a low- or 0-g colony would be an enormous benefit for her. As older
people tend to be more disabled, and richer, than most, not to mention
very numerous, there's a real market opportunity if the price is right,
transportation is good enough for the grand-children to visit, and the
medical facilities are first class.

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