In the aftermath of the Titan submersible implosion near the site of the sunken Titanic, OceanGate — the company behind the fated expedition — has been a bit of a PR kick. Understandably! The company's co-founder, Guillermo Söhnlein, recently had a publicity chat with Business Insider in which he revealed his long-term plans to build a floating Venusian colony with at least 1000 human residents by the year 2050:
In spite of this, Söhnlein doesn't see why humanity shouldn't attempt to live on the planet. He points to research that suggests there is a sliver of the Venusian atmosphere about 30 miles from the surface where humans could theoretically survive because temperatures are lower and pressure is less intense.
If a space station could be designed to withstand the sulfuric acid in the clouds, Söhnlein says, hundreds to thousands of people could someday live in the Venusian atmosphere.
He says a floating colony could hold 1,000 people in the Venusian atmosphere by 2050, although exactly how this will happen is less clear.
Technically speaking, the Venusian expedition would be the provenance of a separate startup from OceanGate, one called Humans2Venus. The Insider piece compares this aspiration to SpaceX's plans to colonize a Mars — a distant dream used to attract investors, so that the company can develop technologies such as Starlink on the path towards that lofty pitch goal.
But either way: it sure would be a shame if 1000 rich people went to Venus in a ship steered by a glorified video game controller, which then imploded from the pressure.
OceanGate's cofounder wants to send 1,000 people to a floating colony on Venus by 2050, and says we shouldn't stop pushing the limits of innovation [Marianne Guenot / Insider]
