Google's Eric Schmidt and film director James Cameron back venture to mine in space

Forget the gold rushes of the Wild West, the next grab for natural riches could eclipse anything that has gone before it. Power players including Eric Schmidt, the Google chairman, and James Cameron, the film director, are planning to mine the final frontier: space.


Eric Schmidt, the Google chairman, and the internet giant’s co-founder Larry Page are listed alongside James Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar, among the venture’s investors and advisers to the space mining project.

By Emma Rowley9:30PM BST 21 Apr 2012

Power players including Eric Schmidt, the Google chairman, and James Cameron, the film director, are planning to mine the final frontier: space.

They are among the backers of a new venture that will reach for the riches lying elsewhere in the solar system. Planetary Resources will be a “space exploration company to expand Earth’s resource base” according to scant information released ahead of the start-up’s launch in Seattle on Tuesday.

“The company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP,” was the bold claim. “This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources’.”

Mr Schmidt and the internet giant’s co-founder Larry Page are listed alongside Mr Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar, among the venture’s investors and advisers.

The company was founded by Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis. “Since my childhood I’ve wanted to do one thing, be an asteroid miner,” Mr Diamandis told Forbes earlier this year. “So stay tuned on that one.”

While the costs of space travel are high, the hope is that riches contained in asteroids would make the sums worthwhile. Studies suggest that gold and other metals in the earth’s crust originated from asteroids that collided with the planet during its early life.

Mr Cameron is no stranger to ventures outside of Hollywood, last month becoming the first solo diver to explore the Earth’s deepest point, the Mariana Trench in the Pacific.
Over the weekend it emerged that his fellow backer in Planetary Resources, Mr Schmidt, was paid $101m (£63m) by Google for his working during 2011.

Google's Eric Schmidt and film director James Cameron back venture to mine in space - Telegraph

heard this on NPR

they said they wanted to drill asteroids

now...i know the asteroids they want are the super large asteroids that are bigger then some states in america and these super large asteroids are filled with metals like nickel, silver, and gold but how do the plan on landing on it and how do they plan to launch off of it and will this company be private or will we it be public and allow investors to buy shares because i want in

niccas with money think they can do anything. even superman wouldnt be able to bring that !! back to earth.

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:applause: Hope this happens soon. Maybe then we could stop raping Africa and it might solve some of our energy/resources issues

Man this some Armageddon type !! right here. What if they don't find these particles on asteroids.