By Evan Ackerman
This just in: Virgin Galactic and Google want you (yes YOU) to be a part of Virgle, a joint project with the objective of establishing a permanent, self-sustaining human city with a population of 100,000 on the planet Mars by 2108. Sure, that’s a long ways off, but they’ll need a crew to get started, and selection begins now. If you think you might have what it takes, head on over to the application and see. Note that the second part of the selection process focuses on 30 second YouTube videos submitted by potential applicants, which you’ll be able to check out on Project Virgle’s YouTube channel.
So, what’s the motivation behind Virgle? According to Larry Page: “We feel that ensuring the survival of the human race by helping it colonize a new planet is both a moral good in and of itself and also the most likely method of ensuring the survival of our best – okay, fine, only — base of web search volume and advertising inventory. So, you know, it’s, like, win-win.”
Now, even if all of this is some sort of April Fool’s joke, there still might be some space travel in it for the best YouTube application video, since Virgin Galactic will be doing that sort of thing in the not too distant future. ‘Course, it might just be wishful thinking on my part.
If you have a little bit of time, it’s worth reading through the Virgle website, especially their 100 year plan. It’s well thought out and contains a lot of accurate information, all of which will be relevant if when Mars is finally colonized.
[ Project Virgle ]
By the way, how’s their moonbase doing?