Mystery Space Venture Surprise!

In a teasingly mysterious announcement, a coalition of Google Investors, Software billionaires and Director James Cameron have declared their intention to "unveil a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity's prosperity."

Sounds like they knew my birthday is next month.

The new venture, called "Planetary Resources", is the center of much speculation. One of the principle founders of the venture and co-director of the million-dollar X-Prize Contest Peter Diamandis has previously hinted towards his interest in exploiting minerals within asteroids,  leaving many to wonder if Planetary Resources might be an attempt at Asteroid Mining.

951 Gaspra, the first asteroid to be observed close-up.

On April 24th, when the venture is fully revealed, we'll get the pleasure of knowing for sure. Asteroid Mining could certainly be very lucrative; A typical asteroid (one mile in diameter) contains billions of dollars worth of precious metals and industrial materials, and spent comets are thought contain large amounts of water and oxygen that could be used to supply prolonged manned space missions.

Whatever the venture, it's certain to be interesting with the rogue's gallery of innovators behind it. Google co-founder Larry Page has signed on as an investor and adviser alongside such others as software engineering visionary Charles Simonyi, and Space Tourism entrepeneur Eric Anderson (known for leading Space Adventures, the first privately-owned company to send people into space).

If these guys feel bold enough to call it "a mission to help ensure humanity's prosperity", I believe it. Private Space Entrepeneurship has an unbelievably bright future and extremely exciting implications, granted enough public interest can be garnered.