Amazon founder and executive chairman of Blue Origin Jeff Bezos believes that relocating heavy industry beyond Earth is the only scenario in which economic growth can coexist with environmental preservation. Bezos stated this during the VivaTech conference in Paris.
The development of space infrastructure will allow the entire Earth to become a continuous park zone, which could support three times the current population. The Moon will play a primary role in this plan, believes the businessman.
"The Moon is a kind of gift. It’s so close to Earth. You can get there in three and a half days, and return in the same amount of time. You can go there anytime, you don’t have to wait for the planets to be in the perfect position," said Bezos.
To transport materials from the surface of the Moon into space requires 28 times less energy per kilogram than launching from Earth, he explained. For example, extracting and delivering liquid oxygen from the Moon to orbit is significantly easier and cheaper.
In Bezos's opinion, the economic logic of lunar exploration is as compelling as the environmental one.
First and foremost, there is a vast supply of resources. For 4.5 billion years, the Moon has been subjected to meteorite bombardment, so all the necessary minerals for building space infrastructure are located just beneath its surface.
Blue Origin is already working on projects to utilize local resources (in-situ), for instance, learning to manufacture solar panels directly from lunar regolith.
Water ice is found in permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles. Through electrolysis, it can be broken down into liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen – ideal fuel for spacecraft. This will allow landing modules to be refueled right on the surface, ensuring a continuous human presence on the satellite.
Thanks to these resources, humanity will be able to build large computing centers and energy systems in space, using materials from the Moon and near-Earth asteroids, Bezos explained. In the future, even microchips for orbital data centers will be produced beyond Earth, with only the final computation results sent back to the planet.
