Barack wants to create two and a half million jobs. The infrastructure is a huge deal. This war on work, that I suppose exists, has casualties like any other war. The infrastructure's the first one Declining trade school enrollments are the second one. Every single year, fewer electricians, fewer carpenters, fewer plumbers, fewer welders, fewer pipefitters, fewer steamfitters. The infrastructure jobs that everybody is talking about creating are those guys. The ones that have been in decline, over and over. In the meanwhile, we got two trillion dollars, at a minimum, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, that we need to expend to even make a dent in the infrastructure which is currently rated at a D minus. ~ Mike Rowe speaking about dirty jobs at a TED conference. (18:13 - 19:11)
I think the way space habitation is depicted is too clean. Space habitation will require tons of skilled labor. But, if we are only producing enough skilled labor to develop a less then mediocre infrastructures on Earth, we will not have enough people to build and maintain a space habitation. A infrastructure rated at "D minus" on a space habitation means death, it means a complete failure of life support system. Maintaining infrastructure on Earth is easy, when compared to repairs in space. Yet, we can't even handle upkeep on Earthly infrastructures. Mike Rowe's words are a clear warning to the space movement, we will need more skilled labor before we will ever build a space settlement.
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What can we do to produce more skilled labor? Should Science, Technology, Math and Engineering (STEM) be moved out of the ivy tower or will STEM's exclusivity to academia have no effect on producing more skilled labor for space?
