Billionaire Jeff Bezos shed some more light on his plans to take us to the moon. At the Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, Bezos said that his Blue Origin space venture will play a critical role in this so-called lunar settlement.

“We will have to leave this planet,” Bezos told Geekwire. “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.”

He thinks the Earth should be zoned for residential and light industrial use, while much of the heavy industry will move to other planets or the moon. He predicts this will happen in the next 100 years. As Gizmodo described it, “humans will ultimately use the functionally unlimited expanse of space as a giant solar powered manufacturing sector slash garbage dump.”

Bezos did say that the exploration and eventual settlement of the moon “won’t be done by one company.” He noted a desire to collaborate with NASA or the European space agency, but said it will ultimately require “thousands of companies working in concert over many decades.”

The private space race has been heating up in recent years with Bezos and fellow rocket billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson.

Over the last weekend, Branson said that he and Bezos are “neck and neck as to who will put people into space first.” But, he added, they “have to do it safely,” calling it a “race with ourselves” to ensure that they each build a shuttle that is safe enough to send people to space.

Don’t hold your breath for private space travel to go mainstream anytime soon. To put things in perspective: Fewer than 600 people, nearly all from the public sector, have ever gone above the Kármán line—the point about 62 miles above Earth that marks the beginning of space.

亿万富翁杰夫·贝佐斯透漏了他的月球移民计划。在洛杉矶召开的太空发展大会（Space Development Conference）上，贝佐斯称他的太空初创公司蓝色起源（Blue Origin）将在所谓的月球殖民计划中发挥关键作用。

贝佐斯对Geekwire表示：“未来，我们必须离开地球。我们会离开这个星球，这会让它变得更好。我们可以自由往返。想留在地球的人可以留下来。”

他认为地球应该作为居住区和发展轻工业，大部分重工业将搬到其他星球或者月球上去。他预计在100年内，这一愿景将得以实现。正如网络媒体Gizmodo描写的那样：“人类最终将把功能无限的广阔太空，用作一个庞大的、太阳能驱动的制造工厂，进而大幅减少垃圾。”

不过贝佐斯承认，月球开发和最终的定居“无法靠一家公司完成。”他希望与美国国家航空航天局（NASA）或者欧洲航天局合作，但他表示最终需要“数千家公司合作数十年时间”。

近几年，私人太空竞赛愈演愈烈，贝佐斯以及同样热衷于火箭的亿万富翁埃隆·穆斯克和理查德·布兰森都加入了竞赛。

上周末，布兰森表示，他和贝佐斯在“谁将率先将人类送入太空的竞赛中并驾齐驱。”但他补充道，他们必须“保证安全”，并称这是一场“与自己的竞赛”，努力保证他们打造的太空船能够足够安全地将人类送入太空。

但别指望私人太空旅行将很快成为主流。实事求是地说：只有不到600人曾经越过卡门线，而且他们几乎全部来自公共部门。所谓卡门线是指地球表面上方62英里，被作为地球大气层与外太空的分界线。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓