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Comment by aaco | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of Google on April Fools' Day, creating a project willing to do exactly that.

http://www.google.com/virgle/

That's funny, but it is also a shame Mars colonization has become a butt of jokes instead of a reality. Or perhaps it means it is getting closer to reality in peoples' minds if it is an April Fools Joke (in the sense those jokes are often supposed to trick people)?

Or perhaps it means it is getting closer to reality in peoples' minds if it is an April Fools Joke

I think that's true, but I don't see it as a shame to be a joke in any way. I mean, in Google case, the joke is more in the application form and other subtle things, like the last FAQ question (http://www.google.com/virgle/faq.html#11) and the error page (http://www.google.com/virgle/error.html), which says, amongst other things:

  "... Virgle isn't real.
  
  Yet."

Google's previous April Fool's caper -- a sewer-based ISP -- wasn't too different from some real-life proposals:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2007/Apr/01/goog...

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