Investors plan to prospect on asteroids © Reuters/Ho New Film director James Cameron is among investors in a new venture that wants to start mining asteroids. The man responsible for Avatar and Titanic is getting behind Planetary Resources, which plans to survey and extract precious metals and minerals from asteroids orbiting near the Earth. Co-founder of Google, Larry Page,and the company's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt are also pouring money into the Washington-based firm, which will initially develop and sell low-cost spacecraft. Bosses hope to be able to launch a test mission within the next two years, with its first customers expected to be agencies such as Nasa and private research institutes. Planetary Resources then hopes to start prospecting within five to ten years from the thousands of asteroids that pass close to our planet. The company estimates that a 100-foot asteroid could yield as much as $50 billion worth of platninum.