Top managers of GoogleLarry Page and Eric Schmidt and also the director James Cameron are called among investors of joint venture which will be engaged in extraction and a research of metals and minerals of the asteroids which are on Earth orbit.
The company is called Planetary Resources, its headquarters is located in the city of Bellevyyu, State of Washington. The headquarters of the company makes about 20 people, in the market it three years, but earlier was not known for anything remarkable.
Initially Planetary Resources will be engaged in creation and sale of the budget robotic equipment for research missions. It is supposed that the demonstration mission will be directed to Earth orbit in the next two years, co-founders of the company Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson said.
Peter Diamandis - the famous space enthusiast - is going to extort precious metals, minerals and sweet water from asteroids. With it he will be helped by Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and James Cameron's money
It is supposed that the space agencies, such as NASA, as well as private research institutes will become the first clients of Planetary Resources. Then more large-scale program within which it is going to reach thousands of asteroids which are in close proximity to our planet will begin.
The company will take not only minerals and metals of these asteroids, including platinum, but also reserves of sweet water. Water will be stored further on special space bases and to be used for needs of missions of NASA and other human and robotic space missions.
Founders of Planetary Resources do not open how many means they already managed to attract in the startup. However it is known that in addition to Page, Schmidt and Cameron investors were among the former leading developer Microsoft Charles Simonyi, two visitors of the ISS and in combination directors of Google K. Ram K. Ram Shriram and Ross Perot younger (Ross Perot Jr).
According to Diamandis, an asteroid length only 30 meters may contain platinum for the amount from $25 to $50 billion. The initial task of researchers will come down to reducing the price of multimillion space research technologies and solutions in tens and even hundreds of times of current value.