It might sound like science fiction, but a group of wealthy investors plans to start capturing and mining asteroids.

On April 24, the company, called Planetary Resources, will be unveiled, with a mission to harvest mineral wealth from passing asteroids.

The company’s founders told CNN they plan to start out harvesting water — which is extremely valuable for use in space — but could also harvest gold, platinum group metals to bring back to Earth.

“Everything we hold of value here on Earth — metals, minerals, energy, real estate, water — the things that frankly nations fight wars over and in near-infinite quantities in space.”

While it might sound pie in the sky, CNET reports the company has a recently-released study that says a project like this could be feasible to back it up.

“A study released this month by the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) … concluded the technology to bring an asteroid near Earth to mine its resources could [be] done by 2025. It estimates the cost of the first ‘asteroid capture and return’ mission would cost $2.6 billion.”

A project that ambitious is bound to need a lot of startup capital. The Los Angeles Times says the company already has some big names on board.

“The backers include Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page and Chairman Eric Schmidt, ‘Avatar’ director James Cameron and Microsoft Corp.’s former chief software architect Charles Simonyi.”

MSNBC reports the company’s first project is to develop its own space telescope to figure out which near-Earth asteroids are the best targets.