opportunities in this solar system

Doug wrote,

"Does anyone know of a plan or company working on building an orbital
settlement in the Saturn system? I'd go."

I talked to the wife, Doug, and you know, she'd send you!

Jan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Douglas May
>
> 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