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March 31, 2008

Google And Virgin Team For Human Settlement On Mars

Duncan Riley

65 comments »

virgle.jpgSir 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:

virgle2.jpg

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Henry Work

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm

    Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9_aFykaxU

  2. Mystery CEO

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    This has nothing to do with April Fools?

  3. Daniel

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Sign me up. I’m tired of Global warming and net neutrality.

    -Dan

    APRIL FOOLS!

  4. 113.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Have a nice trip.. goodbye.. :-o

  5. Reality Bites

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    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?

  6. Technicle

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:23 pm

    On leave to Mars. Bye. :-D

  7. Alex Kaminski

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:24 pm

    I wonder if this is real or not. It might be like gmail’s 1gb, seems unreal… but is true.

  8. shafi

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:25 pm

    April fool

    lol

  9. Metrofunk.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:32 pm

    Wow, i’d like to meet the intern that came up with this years April fools joke. Thats some serious work there.

  10. chucky

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    Today must be a no-work day for google employees or something. Wonder if anyone can fool google…

  11. Sunil

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    Let me go to Mars :D

  12. Alex Kaminski

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:35 pm

    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).

  13. Brett

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:39 pm

    Fantastic acting on the Google founders part. Look out Hollywood.

  14. Craig J

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    Larry’s face and smile gave it away…why do we even waste our time on this..

  15. Suraj Luke

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:44 pm

    Oh my…do they hire a CJO (Chief Joke Officer) who co0mes up with all these innovative crap? LOL…

  16. MyMade UpName

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:44 pm

    “oh, all right. Fine. April Fool’s. Ha, ha, ha. It isn’t real. There. Are you happy?”
    From: http://www.google.com/virgle/error.html

  17. Evan

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:49 pm

    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

  18. Peter Harrington

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    this has got to be the worst acting i have ever seen. I mean come on!

  19. Don Wilson

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:52 pm

    These April Fool’s jokes are already getting annoying. They’re coming out entirely too early.

  20. Abhinav

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    I wont trust anything that comes out of Google today, not even the search results.

  21. The Hater

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:07 am

    Maybe they should spend more time thinking about how their stock is tanking.

  22. Hot Auction Items

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:08 am

    April fools, yo!

    Too predictable.. need to do your jokes a day earlier… :)

  23. * Miss Universe

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:14 am

    UPDATE: :-o


    Miss Mars will now compete in the Miss Universe Pageant!

  24. Ciaran

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:30 am

    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!

    ;)

  25. Saurabh Garg

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:31 am

    I think its their annual April Fool’s Day prank.

  26. skidoo

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:35 am

    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 …

  27. ccchai

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:41 am

    Check out 2 more Google’s April Fool’s jokes (from Google China and Japan) at my blog!!!!!!!!!!!!

    (http://impressionsoft.blogspot.com/2008/04/googles-april-fools-joke-2008.html)

  28. Pc tips and antivirus software reviews

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:43 am

    Well that was lame ay?

  29. Tyler Wright

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:44 am

    Richard pronounces it different than Larry and Sergey.

    This is REAL: these guys are insano visionaries, and Al Gore just ruined planet earth.

  30. ajay

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:52 am

    this is april fool or something else
    i think google is every where internet to desktop and now on mars

  31. Anon

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:52 am

    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?

  32. ineedhits Australia

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:00 am

    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?

  33. Andy

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:13 am

    This will be an April Fools

  34. Tim Fletcher

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:28 am

    WHATEVER!!!! LOL!

  35. Justin

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:34 am

    on a serious note, …….it’s a great idea, too bad it’s not a reality …….or is it.

  36. kjlkj

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:34 am

    What a useless April Fools.

  37. scott

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:45 am

    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?

  38. BR

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:55 am

    April Foogles! http://www.google.com/virgle/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!

  39. vutt

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:02 am

    nice

  40. vutt

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:03 am

    http://www.metalglassfurniture.com

  41. Kashif

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:18 am

    April Fool to all who take this seriously :)

  42. Jesus H Christ

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:39 am

    The real joke would be if this is indeed real.

  43. shams

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:48 am

    Well it’s amazing :-) .

  44. johns

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:57 am

    I signed up! Getting prepared for the trip and learning all about conditions on Mars by reading Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

  45. Ernst-Jan

    April 1st, 2008 at 3:02 am

    Check http://www.virgle.com

    :-)

  46. mike

    April 1st, 2008 at 3:06 am

    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 ………………….

  47. Luke S

    April 1st, 2008 at 4:51 am

    me want to join?

    Is private beta?

  48. newssweb

    April 1st, 2008 at 5:42 am

    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!!!

  49. Et

    April 1st, 2008 at 6:49 am

    Didn’t Google do a “moon april fool’s” a while back? Not very impressive.

  50. WTF

    April 1st, 2008 at 6:50 am

    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?

  51. Erick Schonfeld

    April 1st, 2008 at 7:55 am

    I love that Larry can’t even keep a straight face. Sergey’s the natural prankster.

  52. internet classifieds

    April 1st, 2008 at 8:49 am

    Lame lame. Bad acting on Larry side.

    This is too impossible to believe. Maybe better luck next year. Where are the pigeons?

  53. APIbriefings

    April 1st, 2008 at 9:05 am

    Branson’s announcement video is better:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWCQYcPlUng

  54. Yan

    April 1st, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    Check this link: http://www.google.com/virgle/error.html

    You’ll learn more about Virgle…

  55. Ricky J. Fico

    April 4th, 2008 at 5:29 am

    God knows I had been spaced-out enough in my life but this seemingly appears a tremendous opportunity for me to finally conquer my acrophobia which I recently acquired after scaling the Great Wall of China (blind-folded).

    Sir Richard Branson is one of my mentors. Or is it progeny? Shoot, sometimes I don’t know if I’m coming or going!

    Well, I better start packing a lunch. Somebody told me that the road trip to Mars doesn’t include stops at the local McDonald’s.

  56. jose

    April 14th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    what dont they call it googin

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