Looks like there's going to be a new player in the space game pretty soon. On Tuesday, during a press conference at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Planetary Resources will come into existence.Behind the mystery venture are Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google, director James Cameron, Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Charles Simonyl, Google Board of Directors member K. Ram Shiram, and Chairman of the Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr.The cryptic press release didn't give any details save a name and vague description of the company's goals. It will "overlay two critical sector – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP." It goes on the say that the innovative startup will "create a new industry and a new definition of natural resources."It may be convoluted, but it's enough information to give some scientists a pretty clear idea of what Planetary Resources might do. It's likely an asteroid mining company. That's really the only thing in space that we need on Earth and could redefine natural resources.Scientists have long suspected asteroids, which are believed to be made of material leftover from the Solar System's formation or a mystery planet's destruction, might hold valuable resources. There are tens of thousands of astroids in orbit between Mars and Jupiter – the so-called asteroid belt – and occasionally one comes close enough to Earth to pose a threat. But, they also come close enough to make a sample or resource collection mission possible.Asteroids generally fall into three categories. More than 75-percent are C-type asteroids made of the same material as the Sun, but without the hydrogen, helium, and other volatiles. Seventeen percent are S-type asteroids containing deposits of nickel, iron, and magnesium. The remaining small percentage are M-type astroids that contain nickel and iron. In addition to metals, scientists suspect some asteroids might contain oxygen, water, gold, and platinum.Water is of particular interest if it can be mined form asteroids because it could be a valuable resource on long duration missions and future space colonizers. It could also be broken into oxygen and hydrogen for air and rocket propellant. The metals could be used to build or repair spacecraft off of Earth.But there are plenty of reasons to mine asteroids before we become interplanetary travelers. One report from NASA estimates that the minerals found throughout the asteroid belt could be worth more than $100 billion for each of the six billion people on Earth. Others have estimated that an asteroid measuring 0.6 miles across (1 kilometre) with a mass close to two billion tons could contain 30 million tons of nickel, 1.5 million tons of metal cobalt, and 7,550 tons of platinum. The platinum in this theoretical astroid along would be worth more than $150 billion, and there are thought to be close to a million asteroids in the belt of a similar size and with a similar composition.Mining an asteroid would be cheaper than sending men to Mars or the Moon since more pass closer to Earth than our natural satellite. The biggest challenge is keeping the asteroid stable while it's mined, and how best to mine it is another question mark. Machinery will likely be solar powered, lightweight, and preferably robotic – not sending men to do the work would simplify the mission.Those are the details future miners and mission planners will have to work out, like Planetary Resources' celebrity list of founders. Maybe Cameron's next box office smash will be a 3-D adventure of an asteroid mission gone wrong.
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