> Yeah, I buy it. Hell, I'd work for little more than a pretty meager wage if I could be reasonably sure of ACCOMPLISHING something meaningful in space.
You can, and don't even have to quit your day job. Read up on "self expanding automation" ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/S... ), where a starter kit of machines is used to build parts for more machines, until you have the production capacity you need. In space, instead of sending a whole factory to process asteroids or support a Mars base, you send just the starter kit, and build the rest from local materials. On Earth the same idea of bootstrapping from a starter kit lets you grow your rocket factory or launch site, or any other industrial production you want.
An industrial starter kit will be beyond the average person's finances, but then so is a data center. The way to bring it down to the individual level is (a) to make it distributed - the machines are split up among different people or groups, but they collaborate to make things, or (b) to run a centralized production location on a time share or lease basis. You need a part, you submit the design files and a small payment to have it made. Much of the work becomes designing new or upgraded things to make to expand the system. You can do that at home, because you already have a computer to run the design software.
Once people get the hang of making starter kits and growing them, they can work towards more and more difficult locations. First typical metro areas, then deserts, ice caps, oceans, and finally space. Your first kit, when it is fully grown up, can produce another starter kit for the next location, and so on. You automatically build your supply chain as you go.