Page, Cameron, Simonyi, Perot to back launch of new space venture to ‘ensure prosperity’
April 19, 2012
Peter H. Diamandis, M.D.; leading commercial space entrepreneur Eric Anderson; former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki; and planetary scientist and veteran NASA astronaut Tom Jones, Ph.D. announced Wednesday that they will unveil a new space venture with the mission to help ensure humanity’s prosperity.
The new venture will “overlay two critical sectors — space exploration and natural resources — to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.”
The venture is supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; filmmaker & explorer James Cameron; Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Microsoft’s former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, Ph.D.; Founder of Sherpalo and Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram; and Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr.
“This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources,’” the statement said.
The news conference will be held at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at The Museum of Flight in Seattle on Tuesday, April 24 at 10:30 a.m. PDT and available online via webcast. It will feature Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., Space Tourist, Planetary Resources, Inc. Investor; Eric Anderson, Co-Founder & Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.; Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder & Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.; Chris Lewicki, President & Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources, Inc.; and Tom Jones, Ph.D., Planetary Scientist, Veteran NASA Astronaut & Planetary Resources, Inc. Advisor.
Several commentators are speculating that the venture will involve extraterrestrial asteroid mining, suggested by statements by Diamandis to Forbes in a video (below) recorded on Jan. 25, 2012. He said he “wanted to become an asteroid miner … so ‘stay tuned’ on that one” and in the following video, he provides more details.
NASA announces asteroid study project
In a possibly related announcement also made on Wednesday, NASA announced an outreach project will enlist the help of amateur astronomers to discover near-Earth objects (NEOs) and study their characteristics. NEOs are asteroids with orbits that occasionally bring them close to the Earth.
A new citizen science project called “Target Asteroids!” will support NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission objectives to improve basic scientific understanding of NEOs. OSIRIS-Rex is scheduled for launch in 2016 and will study material from an asteroid.
Amateur astronomers will help better characterize the population of NEOs, including their position, motion, rotation and changes in the intensity of light they emit. Professional astronomers will use this information to refine theoretical models of asteroids, improving their understanding about asteroids similar to the one OSIRIS-Rex will encounter in 2019, designated 1999 RQ36.
Comments (8)
by anthrobotic
REMINDER: Probable Off-Planet Mining Announcement, & Japan has its Hand Raised.
“Asteroid mining could be pretty cool. It’s actually feasible with today’s technology. Ask Japan about this. Seriously, you need to ask Japan about this. COME ON – ASK JAPAN!”
http://goo.gl/lhEay
by tom
how about connecting to the Space elevator. Hook the asteroid or some part of it to the space elevator cable and on the other end is the satellite you want to launch. Kind of like dumb waiter. We spend millions to launch satellites now. This could be a win win.
by Samantha Atkins
Very very interesting. Mining and otherwise utilizing NEOs is a way forward. The downside is the very long mission profiles. At least this is a downside for human crewed missions. We don’t have good enough autonomous space robotics for such a mission. So what can be done today?
We can nudge small rocks into stable orbits at GEO where they can be worked more efficiently and be used to build crude space habitats while they are being further processed. A gravity tug would be sufficient. Alternately we can send a manned mission to the first reasonably sized asteroid that comes close and they can drill in and excavate to ride out its orbit using it as a moving base. Most common asteroids have adequate volatiles for air, water and fuel.
by melajara
Elon Musk should join them, but he has already his own agenda so we could even end up with a healthy competition here.
by Iain
Why not call the Company “Resources Development Administration (RDA) “? Maybe they can look for a moon full of 11 foot tall Blue Cat/Monkey people in the Alpha Centauri system to harass with their whacky mineral mining shennanigans…….with Hilarious Results!!!
Actually that would be pretty sweet….
by Dr. Paul J. Werbos
This gives me really intense bittersweet feelings. I really hope there is some hope left but long experience (see web site) make some worry that this will end up like Google’s venture in solar power. With the resources they have, they actually could do this… but only if they avoid the pitfalls, not so often openly discussed, which killed all previous similar efforts. It sure would take a multistep game plan at best.
by Khannea Suntzu
Dense Veldspar Peter, that’s still where the action is.
by YoungCaesar
It’s a big dream. I like it. Diamandis is a Christopher Columbus of the 21st century.