The meteorite mining company was born

A series of top US entrepreneurs set up a company to exploit precious metals and water on 9 meteorites near the earth.

Planetery Resources , the name of the new company, is owned by Larry Page, co-founder of Google and Charles Simonyi, board chairman of International Software, and another entrepreneur, Space. Filmmaker James Cameroon and former astronaut Tom Jones joined the company as an advisor.

'If we look at space resources, we see exploiting meteorites near the earth as a logical step,' said Eric Anderson, co-chairman of the board of Planetery Resources, speaking at the press conference at Bao Museum in Seattle, Washington state, USA yesterday.

Illustration of a spacecraft approaching a meteorite to exploit resources. (Photo: Space)

Anderson said the company will initially exploit water and platinum metals - including ruthenium, platinum, rhodium, palladium, osmium, and iridium.

Metallic platinum exists at low levels on Earth and exploiting them is difficult. That's why they are sold at very high prices. According to Anderson, the platinum metal does not exist naturally in the earth's crust. They are part of meteorites that have plunged into the earth for hundreds of millions of years.

'We will fly to the meteors. In large platinum meteorites, the stock of platinum metal is much higher than the earth , 'Anderson said.

Besides the platinum group, humans can also exploit countless other precious metals on meteorites. Planetary Resources management confirmed that a meteorite rich in platinum metals and 500m wide contains metal reserves equivalent to the reserves that humans exploit throughout human history.

Many meteors also contain large amounts of water. This is a resource that Planetary Resources also wants to exploit. After taking water from meteorites, the company will sell them right in the universe so the spacecraft will not have to carry water from the ground. Astronauts can use water to drink and grow food. In addition, state-of-the-art equipment can turn water into hydrogen and oxygen - the two main components of rocket fuel. Producing fuel for boosters right in the universe is an essential solution in long flights - such as the spacecraft's exploration - of the spacecraft.

Planetary Resources hopes its efforts to exploit meteorites will lead to the creation of space-based supply stations to serve spacecraft and artificial satellites.

Reference: Space