James Cameron, Google founders Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, and Ross Perot, Jr. are just a few of the big names backing a brand new space exploration company called Planetary Resources, that next Tuesday will "unveil a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity's prosperity."
According to the press release:
[Planetary Resources] will overlay two critical sectors — space exploration and natural resources — to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources'.
To us, that sounds an awful lot like asteroid-mining. If that winds up being the case, then this is very big news.
The project will be unveiled on Tuesday, April 24th at Seattle's Museum of Flight by X Prize founder and outspoken asteroid-mining supporter Peter Diamandis. Joining him will be former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki and planetary scientist (and former NASA astronaut) Tom Jones. Stay tuned, folks — April 24th could very well go down in history as the day we officially set out to tap the infinite resources of the Universe (unless, of course, James Cameron really is going to film Avatar 3 on the Moon). [Technology Review]
