There’s ambitious and then there’s this!! Anyone for living on Mars? So is this an April Fool’s joke or for real? Presume not - see the link near the bottom of the quote..

Richard Branson wrote on the Google Blog a few hours ago:

In my life, I’ve had a lot of exciting adventures and launched a lot of ambitious business ventures. I’m delighted today to announce Virgle, Inc., a joint venture between the Virgin Group and Google which qualifies on both counts.

Virgle’s goal is simple: the establishment of a permanent human settlement on Mars. 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. If you think you might want join us (or invest in or otherwise assist this vast venture), I hope you’ll read more here about how Virgle will work, what our brave Pioneers can expect and what the future holds for what just might be the most ambitious adventure in mankind’s long and storied history.

See you on the north side of Kasei Valles!