Trivia: Paul Reiser's character Carter Burke was so immediately hated that during the movie's premiere his sister hit him, and when Burke's death occurred, his mom's response was simply "good."
Trivia: Walter Hill and David Giler's initial story outline given to Cameron as a rough basis to write the script from was written in an amusingly casual and irreverent style, at one point jokingly referring to the space jockey from the first film as "the dental patient." Cameron recalls of their treatment, "I'll never forget this - the outline concluded with the sentence; 'And then some other bullshit happens.'"
Trivia: Stephen Lang auditioned to play Hicks, a role eventually filled by Michael Biehn. Over twenty years later, Lang would be cast in Avatar as Colonel Quaritch, ironically a part that Biehn was initially considered for.
Trivia: Sigourney Weaver was not that keen to be in the sequel to Alien, so she demanded an exceptionally high fee considering her fairly low status as a movie actress at the time and also a percentage of the box office takings. The producers were going to drop her and go ahead without her but James Cameron insisted that she was fundamental to the film and so her fee was accepted and paid.
Answer: The company doesn't wait 57 years, they built a colony on the planet over 20 years prior to finding Ripley. The company was apparently unaware of the exact location of the derelict spacecraft. After finding Ripley and obtaining information from her, Burke was able to send the Jorden family to the precise location of the derelict spacecraft.