OK, This is Cool!.

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, have decided that Man needs to mine other planets. Mars is first up on their list.

Let’s just hope that Microsoft isn’t doing the software!

Actually, I hope they’re serious, but it will take more money than they have to do what they want. It’ll take more than they have plus what Bill Gates has.

I still want to see viable colonies elsewhere in the solar system before I shuffle off this mortal coil, though. Lunar, L5, Martian, even inhabited asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Humanity needs a diaspora.

(ETA: For the record, I figure this is a Google April Fool’s Day joke – read the pages they put up. But it’s nice to dream.)