Well this has plenty of people excited: the impending announcement (April 24) of “a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity’s prosperity”.
Supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & 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., the company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources’.
Given the “new definition of ‘natural resources'” line, and the involvement of Peter Diamiandis, many have speculated that the venture will be the beginnings of an asteroid mining project. Diamandis mentioned the economic viability of mining asteroids as being a chief motivator for future space exploration:
You think about these other asteroids, there’s a class of Nickel-Iron, which in Platinum Group metal markets alone, are worth something like $20 trillion, if you can go out and grab one of these rocks. My plan is to buy puts on the precious metal market,
and then to claim that I’m going to go out and get one, and that will fund the actual mission to go and get one.
Looking forward to the big reveal on April 24.
