Is it a joke from google or something?
http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html
Google always has fantastic april fools jokes. :lol
it’s a joke…
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344351,00.html
It’s April Fool’s Day, people! And that means the Internet is full of dubious stories, some of which may even be true.
Here’s a list of the best ones we’ve found so far. We’ll keep updating them as the day goes on.
Virgle Expedition to Mars — Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes
Google also announced it was partnering with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to establish the first human colony on Mars by the middle of the next decade. “Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B,” states the Web site, which also features a video greeting by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and an online application for interested Martian colonists.
I remember a few years back, google announced a special feature on Gmail where you could click it and it would send out the paper mail of the email you typed up.
“Nothing beats the old, trusted paper and envelope”
I’m glad they have a sense of humor as they are taking over the world :ahh
It does bring up an interesting topic, should space exploration be controlled by the government? I think privatizing it and watching it closely would save tax payers billions and allow space exploration to proceed at a much quicker rate.
Anyone who has researched space travel would know this is a joke because there are strict rules about advertising private companies in space related travel, which is represented in this case by Virgin and Google. Though, Branson has worked with Paul Allen(Bill Gates Private partner in starting Microsoft, one of the least known extremely wealthy individuals on this planet) in creating privately funded space travel, Google getting involved only makes sense.
^ Yes govn’t needs to have their hand in it. If anyone, just anyone was allowed to explore the idea of space travel and act on it, everyone would also have the capability of weapons programs, etc. There is to much risk of miscalculation and disaster if lets say a person developed a massive space exploration system and then sold that system or tecnology to another country who didn’t have the money for R and D, so that they could use it to empower themselves.
I’m not saying the government shouldn’t have a hand in it, but Nasa it terribly inefficient(like most government agencies) and we, as tax payers, are forced to pay a premium for sub-par performance. If the private sector did the R&D and construction with Nasa just overseeing the project it would save billions year in and year out. Not to mention Nasa’s shady tactics, if it cost all private companies $50m to launch a space shuttle, it costs Nasa $125m and they bid the job for $25m and we the tax payers make up the difference. Not to mention the advertising laws regarding private shuttles, it should be encouraged to help man kind explore space, sure there will be losses, but that’s the way it is with all great discoveries. I agree that it needs to be watched closely, but close inspections and guidance is a lot cheaper then doing it all ourselves.
I’m just waiting on Google Streetview Mars
I was just looking at streetveiw. its pretty cool i didnt even know it was there til the crack dealer thread