Goodbye Cruel World...We're Going To Mars

Ha ha. Very funny Virgin and Google. Way to raise a fella's hopes and dash them on the cliffs of Olympus Mons.

Yesterday, as an hilarious April Fools Joke, Virgin and Google released a joint plan to fund and found the first human settlement on Mars, called VirGle. They went so far as to create a VirGle site, where you can sign up to be a VirGle pioneer, somebody willing to leave the Earth forever and become one of the first citizens of Mars.

As you may know, Virgin is constructing a space port in New Mexico, with flights into edge of space using, among others, the Scaled Composites Space Ship Two (based on Space Ship One). So...they're working on private space travel. What I'm driving at here is, I momentarily believed the story that Virgin and Google were teaming up to draft a Mars mission and my heart went thumpity thump. But no. Noooo...it's a hoax.

President Bush did the same thing to me. I used to say "well...he sucks but at least he laid out a plan to send a man to Mars." and then some time last year he said "Oh that? That's...uh...hiding in a cave with Bin Laden. Let's not talk of them again."

Alas. It'll happen some day. Some day we'll go to Mars. Maybe Obama will have the vision to expand the human consciousness beyond this tiny and vulnerable planet. What the world needs today is something Epic and Hopeful.

And maybe Google and Virgin will still seriously consider a Mars mission. Maybe their joke was how they gauge each other's receptiveness to the idea...

Google: "Gosh I like you Virgin. Hey, let's go to Mars together......HA! Ha ha...kidding, kidding. Ha. Heh. Ha."

Virgin: "HA! Haha! Yeah! That's rich......Good one, old sport."

[Awkward Silence]

Google: "Ha...Mars."

Virgin: "Yeah...ha! *sigh* It would be kinda cool though...maybe?"

[Silence, meaningful eye contact]

Google: "Maybe."

[The two embrace, breathing passionately]

Virgin: "Take me! Take me to Mars!"