Asteroid mining firm aims to open space exploration to the masses

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A Washington State company taking more aggressive steps for mining asteroids, according to a published report.

Planetary Resources of Bellevue said it is intending to construct and operate telescopes that hunt for asteroids that are in orbit near Earth, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. The mining consultants are also moving forward with building robotic spacecraft that will help mine the asteroids for precious metals, water and additional resources.

Partially funded by the founders of Google, Planetary Resources is gauging public interest in its program for a small space telescope. The company also is moving forward with programming of an educational and outreach bent, efforts to bring aboard students, museums, astronomy buffs and travelers and let them use a telescope as part of fundraising efforts.

With goals of raising $1 million by the end of this month, Planetary Resources is gauging the public aperture for partaking in this type of project. The firm is aiming to launch its first telescope within about two years.

Fundraising levels
For $25, donors can use a “space photo booth,” which sends a picture akin to a billboard that will be displayed on the telescope’s side while Earth hovers in the background. That image then would be captured by a remote camera and returned.

For $200, fundraising supporters then are able to benefit from the telescope’s views of astronomical objects.

Three high-profile investors who already are aboard include chief executive Larry Page and chairman Eric Schmidt with Google. Chairman Ross Perot Jr. with real estate developer Hillwood and The Perot Group also is aboard.

“All we are asking is for the public to tell us that they want something,” co-founder Eric Anderson told reporters, according to the news source. “We’re not going to spend our time and resources to do something if people don’t want it and really the only way to prove that it’s something people want is to ask them for money.”

Additional firms embark on fundraising
The Washington State geology consultants are not the first firm to implement efforts for crowd-funding. Golden Spike of Colorado is aiming to operate human expeditions to the moon and thus far has embarked on two Internet funding efforts.

Another firm, Hyper-V Technologies of Virginia worked on development of a plasma jet electric thruster with the assistance of Internet fundraising.

With efforts to enable space exploration accessible to as many people as possible, Planetary Resources named its orbiting space telescope the ARKYD, according to the company’s website.

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