Jeff Bezos Wants to Colonize the Moon

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos believes that humans will one day spend most of their time away from planet Earth and is keen to cash in on this vision by colonizing one of the key future locations of heavy industry: the moon.

At the Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, Bezos, owner of a private spaceflight company called Blue Origin, said he can see the moon one day becoming the manufacturing sector of the universe, according to Geekwire.

Over the coming years, the billionaire predicted that heavy industry, the manufacturing of large, heavy articles and materials in bulk, will move to other planets, the moon and even asteroids, leaving Earth as a place for "residential and light industrial.”

“The Earth is not a very good place to do heavy industry,” he said. “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. We will have to leave this planet. We’re going to leave it, and it’s going to make this planet better.”

Bezos went on to describe the moon’s surface as perfect for heavy industry because it has sunlight 24/7 for solar cells, plenty of water to create fuel and lots of solid materials to build with.

The technology entrepreneur hopes to one day partner Blue Origin with Nasa and the European Space Agency to colonize the moon. Until then, his rocket company will press ahead with plans to launch ships that carry people into space.

“We will have to leave this planet,” Bezos said. “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.” (See also: SpaceX to Build Mars Rocket Factory in Los Angeles.)

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s venture SpaceX plans to send two private citizens around the moon later this year.