Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has been discussing what he sees as the future of humans in space, and how heavy industry will move off Earth’s surface.
Bezos has his own space exploration firm – Blue Origin – and at the Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, he gave an insight into the firm’s plans for colonisation of the moon.
Speaking to Geekwire’s Alan Boyle, the billionaire said: “We will have to leave this planet.
“We’re going to leave it, and it’s going to make this planet better. We’ll come and go, and the people who want to stay, will stay.
“The Earth is not a very good place to do heavy industry. It’s convenient for us right now.
“But in the not-too-distant future – I’m talking decades, maybe 100 years – it’ll start to be easier to do a lot of the things that we currently do on Earth in space, because we’ll have so much energy.”
Blue Origin has short-term goals of reducing the cost of access to space through its New Shepard rocket, but clearly has its sights set further into space.
The firm is not alone in this idea, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing also exploring different methods of private space travel for commercial and exploration purposes.
