The clip was produced by the company Planetary Resources

Jul 12, 2012 14:23 GMT  ·  By

The original announcement that a billionaires-backed private company was set up with the express purpose of mining resources from near-Earth asteroids and other planets came as a shock to many a few weeks back, but also attracted a great deal of interest. This video was just released by the company.

Dubbed Planetary Resources, the company seeks to develop a means of easily discovering resources on other celestial bodies, estimate their quantity and the economic feasibility of exploiting them, and then build spacecraft and robots capable of bringing much-covered platinum back to Earth.

Naturally, there are many other minerals available for mining. The original announcement captured the attention of more than 2,000 people, who enthusiastically submitted their CVs for consideration by the prospective employers.

Have a look at the video above, and tell us what you think about this endeavor. Does humanity have the right to exploit space like we do our own planet? Let us know!