Planetary Resources wants to mine asteroids

SEATTLE -- Can bold entrepreneurship, backed by a few tech billionaires with cash to spare, launch human commerce to the far reaches of the solar system?

The answer is a rousing yes, according to backers of an astounding asteroid-mining scheme unveiled Tuesday by Planetary Resources, a Bellevue, Wash.-based start-up.

The idea: Land robots on selected asteroids in orbit between Mars and Jupiter; figure out how to tap water and minerals as fuel for long-distance spacecraft; and bring home platinum and other precious materials to make it all a profitable venture.

"Since my early teenage years, I've wanted to be an asteroid miner. I always viewed it as a glamorous vision of where we could go," Peter Diamandis, the visionary behind Planetary Resources, told a news conference at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

The project is on a fast track. By 2014, the group plans to launch the first of a series of laundry-basket-size private telescopes that would search the asteroid belt for high-value targets.

Eventually, mass-produced robotic ships will routinely squeeze fuel and minerals from asteroids, becoming fueling depots not unlike the outpost in film director James Cameron's hit movie Avatar. Cameron is listed as an investor in the asteroid project and an adviser.

Scientists not involved in the project have confirmed the technical viability of mining asteroids, but noted how difficult and expensive it would be to make it a reality. Planetary Resources co-founders Diamandis and Eric Anderson successfully introduced the idea of selling rides into space for tourists, including one wealthy repeat customer, former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi, one of Planetary Resources' financial backers.

Other key investors include Google CEO Larry Page and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Page is No. 15 on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of $16.7 billion. Schmidt is No. 50, with a net worth of $6.2 billion, much of that from Google stock awards.

Anderson described how asteroids can be mined for water, the linchpin to deep space exploration, and how extracting precious metals could help drive costs down.

"A depot within a decade seems incredible," said Andrew Cheng at John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab, who was the chief scientist for a NASA mission to an asteroid a decade ago. "I have high hopes that commercial uses of space will become profitable beyond Earth orbit. Maybe the time has come."

Diamandis and Anderson declined to say how much getting the first pieces of equipment into space will cost. But without a big bureaucracy and with private funding, they expect to operate more quickly and cheaply than NASA.

Harvard's Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center, said getting drilling equipment into space and operating safely sounds "expensive and difficult."

While acknowledging that failure would not be a surprise, Anderson noted: "We do understand that the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, if it's successful, will be big."

Contributing: Scott Martin, The Associated Press