SoftwareMaven

Or he just wants to hire somebody who knows what the hell they are doing...

Depends on your back story. If the back story has a probe traveling to the system analyzing the planets in some detail, and transmitting the results back to earth pre-launch, your packing list would be very different than if your back story is basically going in "blind" after a few nano-satellites did their five minute goldilocks zone transits and identified an "interesting" planet.

Are you kidding? Balki was awesome! I listen to audiobooks regularly, and Pinchot does a lot of narration. I keep expecting (nay, hoping for) Balki to show up.

How does California know you moved to Pennsylvania or moved to Florida and died? They don't, and they can't. They've made a decision that, after repeatedly not voting, you have probably moved or died, and they take you off the roles. Short of an unconstitutional central database that tracks your movements, there aren't a lot of other options.

There are multiple suppliers (yes, multiple companies making rockets!), but SpaceX and their Falcon 9 with the Dragon Capsule has actually delivered and is working towards crew missions. Both the Falcon's first stage and the Dragon capsule will eventually return to Earth without the use of parachutes (the landing system on the capsule doubles as the crew jettison in the event of launch failures), which easily makes them the most interesting of the suppliers.