谷歌 Inc executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and filmmaker James Cameron are among those bankrolling a venture to survey and eventually extract precious metals and rare minerals from asteroids that orbit near Earth, the company said on Tuesday.
行星资源集团本周二公布了一项到近地小行星进行勘探，并最后开采贵重金属和稀少矿产的计划。Google公司高管拉里佩奇和埃里克施密特、与著名导演詹姆斯-卡梅隆等人都加入了这项风险投资。
Planetary Resources, based in Bellevue, Washington, initially will focus on developing and selling extremely low-cosplayt robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.
这家企业的总部坐落于华盛顿贝尔维尤，刚开始将着眼于研发并价格极其低廉的机器人宇宙飞船，用于勘探调查任务。
A demonstration mission in orbit around Earth is expected to be launched within two years, said company co-founders Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson.
该公司联合开创者彼得-迪曼蒂斯和埃里克-安德森说，行星资源集团预计两年内在近地轨道拓展初次示范任务。
Planetary Resources aim is to open deep-space exploration to private industry, much like the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition, which Diamandis created.
该企业的目的是在私人企业中拓展外层空间勘测业务，就好似迪曼蒂斯发起的奖金高达一千万USD的安萨里X-Prize大奖赛。
Planetary Resources first customers are likely to be science agencies, such as NASA, as well as private research institutes.
该企业的第一顾客非常可能是科学机构，譬如美国宇航局，与私人研究机构。
Within five to 10 years, however, the company expects to progress from selling observation platforms in orbit around Earth to prospecting services. It plans to tap some of the thousands of asteroids that pass relatively close to Earth and extract their raw materials.
但该公司计划在10年内将业务从供应近地轨道观测平台进步到探矿服务，并计划开发数万颗近地小行星中的一部分，开采其中的稀少矿藏。
Not all missions would return precious metals and minerals to Earth. In addition to mining for platinum and other precious metals, the company plans to tap asteroids water to supply orbiting fuel depots, which could be used by NASA and others for robotic and human space missions.
并不是所有些任务都会带贵重金属和矿产回地球。除去开采白金和其它贵重金属外，该公司还计划开采小行星中的水资源，来提供轨道燃料补给站，美国宇航局和其它机构都可以借助这类补给站进行机器人进行的和载人的航天任务。
We have a long view. Were not expecting this company to be an overnight financial home run. This is going to take time, Anderson said.
安德森说：“大家目光长远。大家并不期待公司能一夜暴富。这需要时间。”
Planetary Resources declined to discuss specifics about how and when asteroid mining would begin. A 30-meter long asteroid can hold as much as $25 billion to $50 billion worth of platinum at todays prices, Diamandis said.
该公司拒绝讨论有关小行星采矿怎么样拓展、与何时拓展等细节问题。迪曼蒂斯说，按现在的价格计算，一个直径30米（98英寸）的小行星可能含有最多价值250亿USD至500亿USD的白金。
The companys first step is to develop technologies to cut the cosplayt of deep-space robotic probes to one-tenth to one-hundredth the cosplayt of current space missions, which run hundreds of millions of dollars, Diamandis said.
他还表示，该企业的第一步计划是研发可以削减外层机器人探测成本的技术，将成本削减至现在高达数亿USD的航空任务本钱的1/10至1/100。
