On April 24, a Bellevue-based company called Planetary Resources unveiled plans to extract platinum, gold and other valuable resources from asteroids. The press conference took place at Seattle's Museum of Flight. Sounding eerily similar to a science-fiction movie, it is no surprise "Avatar" Director James Cameron is among the project's supporters.
Planetary Resources engineers and scientists are at work to fulfill the goal co-founder Eric Anderson put forth at the news conference: to launch the first probes within 24 months. With business people, space buffs, and media in the audience at the Museum of Flight, applause erupted at the exciting direction space exploration is taking.
Anderson said if all goes well, the company could have its first asteroid target identified and ready for mining within a decade.
Planetary Resources aims to use commercially built robotic ships to squeeze rocket fuel and valuable minerals out of the rocks that routinely whiz by Earth.
For more information on this exciting direction of space exploration, read the article from The Seattle Times, which also features this video.
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