Prospecting for platinum in near-Earth asteroids

New York Times : Although it sounds like science fiction, two entrepreneurs have started a company to mine asteroids for precious metals. Planetary Resources founders Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis currently run a successful space tourism business called Space Adventures, which has arranged eight trips to the International Space Station, writes Kenneth Chang for the New York Times. Having attracted such big-name investors as Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google, businessman Ross Perot Jr, and filmmaker James Cameron, Planetary Resources plans to launch a small telescope within the next two years to search for nearby asteroids and then send out small explorers to start visiting some of them.