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LOS ANGELES — Amazon.com Inc. founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos vowed to use his rocket startup to develop robotic rovers and perhaps human habitats on the moon’s surface, even if such projects fail to win financial support from the U.S. government.
In a personal, wide-ranging talk at a space conference here Friday, Bezos laid out his vision for lunar exploration and eventual settlement. Depicting such efforts as a matter of long-term human survival, he said: “This is not something that we may choose to do; this is something we must do.”
Without divulging details about the new generations of powerful rockets, spacecraft and landing vehicles he envisions will be necessary to establish such permanent outposts, Bezos made an impassioned argument for accelerating private space travel. He argued that future generations won’t be able to survive on earth without expanding into other parts of the solar system.
“The alternative is stasis,” he said, adding that without space settlements, societies around the globe “will have to stop growing” due to environmental and other constraints. “That’s not the future that I want for my grandchildren, or my grandchildren’s grandchildren.”
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