"The good news is that amateur hour is now over and the private space race has begun. Where two Cold War superpowers failed, let a thousand business plans bloom!
The future of space is in the hands of the guys behind Amazon, PayPal, and Virgin. The force of competition will create endless possibilities and unimaginable technologies. No more talking about how the space program brought us Tang and Tempur-Pedic mattresses. We're going to Mars, baby, in business class."
"The company counts some heavy-hitters amongst its founders and financial backers, including filmmaker/explorer James Cameron, Google co-founders Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Ross Perot Jr. Charles Simonyi, formerly of Microsoft.
The group's somewhat vague press release has the site Technology Review thinking the new company's goal "sounds like asteroid mining."
Planetary Resources announced its launch on Tuesday morning at an event held at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at The Museum of Flight in Seattle.
And while they have set up several online destinations for the company, including Facebook and Twitter pages, no more specific information has been revealed to the public.
You can read the group's full press release after the jump, which promises, "a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity's prosperity."
