Cameron, Google execs in space mining venture

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and billionaire co-founder Larry Page have teamed up with Avatar director James Cameron and other investors to back an ambitious space exploration and natural resources venture, details of which will be unveiled tomorrow.

The fledgling company, called Planetary Resources, will be unveiled at a news conference at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, according to a press release issued last week.

Aside from naming some of the company's high-profile backers, the press release disclosed tantalisingly few details, saying only that the company will combine the sectors of "space exploration and natural resources" in a venture that could add "trillions of dollars to the global GDP".

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Planetary Resources will explore the feasibility of mining natural resources from asteroids, a decades-old concept.

"This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources'," the press release said.

Planetary Resource was co-founded by Mr Eric Anderson, a former National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mars mission manager, and Mr Peter Diamandis, the commercial space entrepreneur behind the X-Prize, a competition that offered US$10 million (S$12.5 million) to a group that launched a reusable manned spacecraft. Other notable investors include Mr Charles Simonyi, a former top executive at Microsoft, and Mr K Ram Shriram, a Google director.

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