Elon's stated goal re: astronauts and training is that the technology should be sufficiently simplified to let anyone go up with minimal training. The idea of a heavily-trained astronaut is old, and the new thinking is that the people going to space should be able to spend their time up their doing whatever it is they are good at - even if just vacationing - rather than learning how to fly spacecraft etc.
I know this is a Jeff Bezos / Blue Origin article, but I would fully expect the same to be true here. Jeff has stated multiple times that he sees millions of people moving to space stations for work and general life. Earth should be left void of manufacturing and mining and things, which could be moved to space (and asteroids, etc) leaving Earth to be more of a natural environment for life to thrive.
I know this is a Jeff Bezos / Blue Origin article, but I would fully expect the same to be true here. Jeff has stated multiple times that he sees millions of people moving to space stations for work and general life. Earth should be left void of manufacturing and mining and things, which could be moved to space (and asteroids, etc) leaving Earth to be more of a natural environment for life to thrive.