14 DAY TRIAL // The recently announced startup Planetary Resources, whose main area of activity will be asteroid mining, has already attracted over 2,000 prospective employees. All of them want the chance to work in this emerging field, which was science-fiction just a few years ago.
Perhaps one of the things that lends so much credibility to this otherwise-risky endeavor is that Planetary Resources is backed by prominent names, including NASA astronauts and Google officials.
Google co-founders and execs Larry Page ($16.7 billion) and Eric Schmidt ($6.2 billion) are joined in supporting the asteroid-mining company by spaceflight pioneers Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis, as well as by famed director James Cameron (Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, Avatar).
Former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and Sara Seager, a renowned planetary scientist at the Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are also onboard with the project, as advisors.
Under these circumstances, it's no wonder that literally thousands of people want in. In less than three weeks after announcing the startup's intentions, company officials have received 2,000 applications.
Planetary Resources representatives say that they are not searching for actual miners, but for spaceflight experts and engineers who are capable of designing a suitable fleet of robotic spacecraft for gathering resources from near-Earth asteroids.
“We have received over 2,000 applications since our April 24th press event, and we are not currently accepting applications for full-time employees, summer internships or student co-ops,” the company's website reads.
“In the near future, we will be seeking applications from students for Fall 2012 co-ops,” the statement adds. During the official announcement made last month, officials with the startup said that their mining probes would harvest platinum-group metals and water from asteroids.
Water will not be brought back to Earth, but broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen, via a chemical process called electrolysis. Experts say that the chemicals may then be stored in tanks on space gas stations, which could refuel spacecraft that are headed for distant destinations in the solar system.
Such gas stations would eliminate the need for space probes to carry huge amounts of fuel at launch, which in turn increases associated costs, and possibly makes the mission financially unfeasible.
At this point, only around 24 engineers are working for Planetary Resources. Representatives say that they want to keep operation costs down, and move forward as efficiently as possible, Space reports.