Thursday, July 12, 2012

Planetary Resources Gets A (Space) Lift

If you're developing a startup to mine asteroids, you have to first get to them. Seattle-based Planetary Resources, the space mining venture backed by Charles Simonyi, Google's Larry Page, director James Cameron, and others, now looks to have that lift, after Virgin Galactic said Wednesday that Planetory Resources will tap its space launch systems to help deliver its vehicles into outer space. Virgin Galactic--which is backed by Sir Richard Branson--announced the link with Planetary Resources as an expansion of the firm into launching satellites into space. The startup has been working on delivering tourists into space, on vehicles based on SpaceShipOne, the first privately developed vehicle to reach space. The link is not completely surprising, as one of the co-founders of Planetary Resources is Peter H. Diamandis, head of the X Prize Foudation--the group which awarded the $10M prize to SpaceShipOne and spurred development of Virgin Galactic's vehicles in the first place.