Amazon.com and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is a space geek like his rival Elon Musk of SpaceX. But while Musk's aim is to lead the human colonization of Mars, Bezos' goal is a much more mundane matter. Like having "millions of people living and working in space" over the next hundred years.

Like Us on Facebook

That dream for Bezos will begin by relocating the Earth's heavy industries into orbit above the planet. Bezos believes heavy industries should be operating in low Earth orbit over the next hundred years to save the planet from pollution, and to ensure the uninterruptible solar power needed to run these orbiting industrial complexes.

He said humans need sustainable energy but are unable to create it efficiently on Earth using methods like solar power. One solution is to relocate industries that consume a lot of energy out of the Earth and into Earth orbit instead.

He argued that global solar energy use, if it continues on its present growth track, will mean the Earth will be smothered by solar energy farms in just a few hundred years.

"I think that over the next few hundred years we need to move our heavy industry off-planet," Bezos said.

"Our Earth will be zoned residential and light industrial. And that just makes a lot of sense! You shouldn't be doing heavy industry on Earth. Resources are more plentiful in space. We can build gigantic chip factories in space, and then just send the little bits down. We don't actually need to build them here."

He believes his reusable rockets built by his spaceflight services company Blue Origin will be valuable in the future when this move takes place.

"When it comes to space, I see it as my job to build infrastructure the hard way," he noted. "I'm using my resources to put in place heavy-lifting infrastructure so the next generation of people can have a dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion into space."

"I want thousands of entrepreneurs doing amazing things in space, and to do that we need to dramatically lower the cost of access to space."

Blue Origin is focusing on developing technologies that will allow private citizens to travel to space without going broke. In November 2015, the company's New Shepard rocket traveled 100 kilometers into the atmosphere to reach space and successfully landed back on Earth intact. It's the only other company other than SpaceX to have accomplished this feat.

TagsJeff Bezos, blue origin, Amazon.com, new shepard