The question is not "Would a randomly selected demographic be a good pool for this mission"

The question is "Could we create a cadre of 400 highly effective people that could sustain a colony on a spaceship.

I argue the answer to the first is "No" for any demographic but the answer to the second is a clear "Yes".

Maybe the issue is that people assume that a randomly selected population would consist of US citizens. What if you picked Japanese? They did well during covid. An they are know for having a strong communal responsibility. Maybe the average US citizen is just a bad choice for a generation ship? Then again given the choice between sending foreign citizen's or sending no generation ship would probably result in no generation ship bring launched.

People from latin america might be a good match - last time the fleet of generation ships not only reached the destination in sufficient number, but one of them even ahead of schedule[0]!

[0] https://revelationspace.fandom.com/wiki/Sky_Haussmann

> The question is "Could we create a cadre of 400 highly effective people that could sustain a colony on a spaceship?"

For a generational ship, the question becomes even more complex because you would have to build a culture of expertise that can sustain itself over multiple generations.

> The question was capacity to sacrifice for the common good.

COVID didn't test for capacity to sacrifice for the common good. Sacrifice is voluntary. It tested for capacity to submit to authoritarian control for the common good.