OceanGate co-founder wants to take 1,000 humans to live in Venus atmosphere by 2050

Guillermo Sohnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate Expeditions that operated the ill-fated Titan submersible, aims to set up a floating human colony on Venus by 2050. Sohnlein believes that humanity should continue to try to push limits despite mishaps like the Titan tragedy, according to media reports.

Sohnlein is also the founder and chairman of Humans2Venus Foundation, which, according to the company’s website, is a non-profit organisation “dedicated to exploring Venus as a potential long-term destination for humanity”.

The entrepreneur has set a goal to send 1,000 humans to live in the Venus atmosphere, the second planet in the solar system, by 2050, according to the Daily Mail.

He told Business Insider that his plan is not crazy and “less aspirational than putting a million people on the Martian surface by 2050”.

According to a blog post by Sohnlein, dated February 27, he came across a report a few years ago containing data collected by Russia’s Venera mission to Venus. He claimed that the data suggested that the gravity measured 50 km above Venus’ surface was 1G, which was similar to the gravity we experience on Earth.

Sohnlein added that even the atmospheric pressure, 50km above the surface of Venus, was around 1 ATM while the temperature was also “relatively tolerable (30-50 degree Celsius)”. Sohnlein claimed that the atmosphere of Venus provides “sufficient” radiation protection even when the planet is closer to the Sun.

“The potential for a permanent human presence in the Venusian atmosphere seemed viable, even if it also seemed to elicit sci-fi comparisons with the “floating cities” seen in Star Wars and other films,” Sohnlein wrote in his blog.

According to NASA, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system and closest to the Sun after Mercury. Venus has a thick and hot atmosphere that wouldn’t allow a person to breathe and anyone would be crushed “by the enormous weight of the atmosphere”.

The atmosphere of Venus mainly consists of carbon dioxide and the planet is completely covered by thick clouds of sulfuric acid.

However, according to Sohnlein, a space station could make it possible for humans to live in the Venusian atmosphere. Without elaborating much, he said a floating colony on Venus could accommodate 1,000 people by 2050. For Sohnlein, this might be aspirational but he thinks “it is very doable by 2050,” reported Insider.

On the Titan submersible tragedy, Sohnlein said the accident should not stop humans from innovating and pushing limits. “Forget OceanGate. Forget Titan. Forget Stockton. Humanity could be on the verge of a big breakthrough and not take advantage of it because we, as a species, are gonna get shut down and pushed back into the status quo,” Sohnlein told Insider.

The Titan submersible was headed to the Titanic shipwreck in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean when it is believed to have imploded, killing all five on board on June 18. The victims were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Dubai-based British explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and French submarine expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Sohnlein, 57, co-founded OceanGate with his friend Rush in 2009. According to a June 22 Facebook post by Sohnlein, he has also served as the CEO of OceanGate and “turned the company over to Stockton (Rush) in January 2013”.

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