About a decade after Sean Connery finished his epic run as master spy James Bond, he starred in a very realistic '80s film called Outland about titanium ore mining on the Jupiter moon of Io. An even more recent film, Moon, envisioned what mining helium-3 on the far side of Earth's moon might be like. Now the impending announcement of a new venture backed by technology icons from Silicon Valley and Hollywood hints that such science fictional scenarios may be on the verge of becoming a reality.
According an invite sent out to certain members of the media, the announcement will introduce a new company called Planetary Resources whose goal is to embark upon "a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity's prosperity." The list of backers includes filmmaker James Cameron, Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, former Chief Software Architect at Microsoft Charles Simonyi, Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram, and Ross Perot, Jr.
The event is scheduled to take place at Seattle's Museum of Flight, hosted by NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki and NASA astronaut Tom Jones. And, as if that weren't enough gravitas, the museum's description of the event states, "A new company will be unveiling its mission to revolutionize current space exploration activities and ultimately create a better standard of living on Earth."
Clearly something very big is in the works, but the exact nature of Planetary Resources' mission is somewhat vague at this point. The only clues given regarding what the company will actually do crops up in the media invitation which reads, "the company will overlay two critical sectors—space exploration and natural resources—to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP."
The combination of space exploration and natural resources seems to point to the mining of space (moons, asteroids, etc.), but until the official announcement, we can only speculate. But while the venture's somewhat lofty goals may invite some skepticism, the high-caliber nature of its backers indicates that this could be a very serious new foray into outer space.
Although the general public is mostly unaware of this nascent industry, the notion of mining space has already inspired several other major efforts. Moon Express hopes to make regular trips to mine Earth's Moon, and NASA itself plans to launch an asteroid surveying spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx in 2014. If the hints at space mining mentioned in Planetary Resources' announcement turn out to be on mark, this could very well be the dawn of an exciting new age of extraterrestrial wealth creation and innovation.
