Sir Richard Branson has announced on the Google Blog Virgle, a joint Google/ Virgin project to establish permanent human settlement on Mars.
Sir Richard writes:
Larry Page, Sergey Brin and I feel strongly that contemporary technology is sufficiently advanced to make such an effort both successful and economical, and that it’s high time that humanity moved beyond Earth and began our great, long journey to explore the stars and establish our first lasting foothold on another world…In the years to come, we’ll be sending up a series of spaceships carrying (along with the supplies and tools needed to build the new colony) what eventually will be hundreds of Mars colonists, or Virgle Pioneers — myself among them.
Virgle is currently taking applications on its site here. The official site also includes a 100 year plan for Mars Settlement and a statement explaining the benefits of the project being Open Source.
Update: there’s also a YouTube competition and official video channel. Page and Brin explain:
Check out the video: http://www.yout...h?v=aV9_aFykaxU
awesome! thanks
Internet Games
This has nothing to do with April Fools?
Sign me up. I’m tired of Global warming and net neutrality.
-Dan
APRIL FOOLS!
Have a nice trip.. goodbye..
I believe they sent Duncan’s critical thinking on the ship that left on march 31st transport… nothing like being owned by Google and Branson. For crying out loud, didn’t I read here that Branson had a scuba diver with a shark fin strapped to his back swimming around the lagoon as Larry and his new bride kite surfed off after their nuptials?
On leave to Mars. Bye.
I wonder if this is real or not. It might be like gmail’s 1gb, seems unreal… but is true.
April fool
lol
Wow, i’d like to meet the intern that came up with this years April fools joke. Thats some serious work there.
Today must be a no-work day for google employees or something. Wonder if anyone can fool google…
Let me go to Mars
It’s obviously an April Fools joke but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was true to some extent (like google and virgin funding some space exploration challenge or something).
Fantastic acting on the Google founders part. Look out Hollywood.
Larry’s face and smile gave it away…why do we even waste our time on this..
Oh my…do they hire a CJO (Chief Joke Officer) who co0mes up with all these innovative crap? LOL…
“oh, all right. Fine. April Fool’s. Ha, ha, ha. It isn’t real. There. Are you happy?”
From: http://www.goog...rgle/error.html
I’m a bit apprehensive to believe this, given the date and all. I think all web companies should cease all press releases within a 2 day window of April Fools if they want to be taken seriously.
It sounds neat though…
http://evansnyder.com
this has got to be the worst acting i have ever seen. I mean come on!
These April Fool’s jokes are already getting annoying. They’re coming out entirely too early.
I wont trust anything that comes out of Google today, not even the search results.
Maybe they should spend more time thinking about how their stock is tanking.
April fools, yo!
Too predictable.. need to do your jokes a day earlier…
UPDATE:
Miss Mars will now compete in the Miss Universe Pageant!
Are you trying to make up for publishing your own April Fool’s joke early by promoting Google’s? You surely didn’t fall for it yourselves did you? Say it ain#t so!
I think its their annual April Fool’s Day prank.
i have an idea : let’s all make april 1st “Google-free day”. all humanity could stop for 1 day using google. that’d be the best way to teach them how to not play with our nerves …
Check out 2 more Google’s April Fool’s jokes (from Google China and Japan) at my blog!!!!!!!!!!!!
(http://impressi...-joke-2008.html)
Well that was lame ay?
Richard pronounces it different than Larry and Sergey.
This is REAL: these guys are insano visionaries, and Al Gore just ruined planet earth.
this is april fool or something else
i think google is every where internet to desktop and now on mars
i love these guys but aren’t they remarkably awkward and camera shy given their long-held status as titans of industry? you’d think after hundreds of press events they’d learn to relax a little?
I’d love to know how much Google spends developing all these April fools jokes. I mean they have videos, websites, blog posts, images.
How much design time do they spend on these elaborate hoaxes?
This will be an April Fools
WHATEVER!!!! LOL!
on a serious note, …….it’s a great idea, too bad it’s not a reality …….or is it.
What a useless April Fools.
u guys are so CRUEL with all of these April Fools jokes.
I already fell for the facebook lawsuit…and almost fell for the future google search.
Why am i so gullible?
April Foogles! http://www.goog...rgle/error.html
(I know I’m not the first to drop this link here, but I do so again out of annoyance. These “jokes” should be more Easter-eggy. Make us work for them. Give a prize to the first person to find them. A golden ticket!
nice
http://www.meta...ssfurniture.com
April Fool to all who take this seriously
The real joke would be if this is indeed real.
Well it’s amazing
.
I signed up! Getting prepared for the trip and learning all about conditions on Mars by reading Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Check http://www.virgle.com
Wow this is really scrapping the bottom for an april fools joke. I thought the point of april fools was to make people believe it ??
If anyone gets suckered into this one then they are ………………….
me want to join?
Is private beta?
That’s the gratifications of new media like google. Love it with their April jokes…
we are far away from the mcluhanian world of users been passive. It is amazing to see how we are all interacting with G Aprils Fool day. Really Great!!!
Didn’t Google do a “moon april fool’s” a while back? Not very impressive.
Why do they act like two 8 year old robots in kindergarden?
Why do they sound like frogs when they talk?
Where did they do their Make-real-funny-jokes studies?