opportunities in this solar system

Most of the objections I hear against orbital space colonies have to
do with economics. Specifically, people don't see the value of
spending enormous sums of money to house retail workers, janitors,
clerks, barbers, tailors and other such people in a orbital city,
when the main functions of such cities (zero-G research and
manufacturing) could well be done by very small groups of
professional "astronauts" on short 3-6 month tours. Like the
international space station (only much better, hopefully).

Because of the large transit time to the asteroid belt and the gas
giants like Saturn, mining colonies in these places would need a
larger population of non-astronauts, since return to Earth would be a
rare occurrence. Saturn is several years away, and has enormous
potential as a mining destination. Plus it's gravity would make it a
good base for slinging probes and spacecraft to the great beyond.
It's close enough to the sun that solar energy would still be useful,
and its radiation belts are much more manageable than Jupiter's.

I'm beginning to think that Saturn's isolation from the Earth makes
it a great location for the first true city in space. Earth bound
settlements likely would be so controlled by our governments and
corporations that they would be feel more like a military base with
it's one PX store and commissary and such rather than feeling like a
real living city.

I hear lots of "plans" to build settlements orbiting Earth, as well
as bases on the moon, Mars, asteroids, and even distant stars. Does
anyone know of a plan or company working on building an orbital
settlement in the Saturn system? I'd go.

doug