Are Richard Branson and Google Teaming For Space Travel? According to reports, Google is mulling a stake in Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, a deal in which the tech giant would have to pony up $30 million in exchange for access to pioneering space-travel technology.
By Geoff Weiss
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Google is in the throes of its very own Space Age.
In addition to dropping billions on satellites and snapping up companies that could eventually help it spread wireless connectivity throughout the globe, a new report alleges that the tech giant is in advanced talks with Richard Branson's space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic.
The rumored deal would give Google a $30 million stake in Virgin Galactic, reports Sky News -- representing a 1.5 percent share. Additionally, a joint venture between the two companies would be formed, according to the report, "folding in the technology" Virgin Galactic has developed and which Google could potentially use to deploy low-orbiting satellites of its own.
While Branson's galactic flights are inching closer towards takeoff -- having recently received FAA clearance -- an endorsement by tech-giant Google would be immensely "reputationally valuable," according to Sky News.
Google and Virgin have teamed up once before for an intergalactic voyage -- albeit for an April Fool's Joke in 2008. That initiative, fittingly dubbed Virgle, sought to create "the first permanent human colony on Mars," and invited the browsing masses to become space pioneers.
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