OceanGate Co-Founder Shifts Focus From The Titan Tragedy To Sending 1,000 Humans To Venus By 2050

After the tragic incident involving the Titan submersible, Guillermo Söhnlein, co-founder of OceanGate, has set his sights on a new, wildly ambitious goal.

According to a report by Business Insider, Söhnlein plans to send 1,000 humans to live in the atmosphere of Venus by 2050.

"It is aspirational, but I think it's also very doable by 2050," he told Insider.

"I think it is less aspirational," he said, "than putting a million people on the Martian surface by 2050," in a reference to Elon Musk's grand goal, which the SpaceX chief shared on Twitter in January 2020.

Despite the tragic loss of passengers on the Titan, Söhnlein remains determined to push the boundaries of human exploration.

"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," he told Insider.

Söhnlein's vision of sending humans to Venus is not associated with OceanGate but rather with his other venture called Humans2Venus.

As the Founder and Chairman of this venture founded in 2020, he aims to establish "a permanent human presence in the Venusian atmosphere."

Söhnlein cites research which suggests there is a region in Venus' atmosphere, approximately 30 miles above the planet's surface, where conditions may be suitable for human existence. In this area, temperatures and pressure are lower than on the planet's surface.

According to the Humans2Venus initiative, Venus, generally referred to as Earth's twin, could potentially support human life.

Their website explains: The gravity on Venus is almost identical to that of Earth; the temperature range falls within the favourable zone for liquid water, between 0-50 degree Celsius; radiation protection is similar to Earth; and the atmospheric pressure is approximately 1 bar/1 ATM, equivalent to Earth at sea level.

However, it acknowledges that the atmosphere on Venus is primarily composed of carbon dioxide, with clouds consisting mainly of sulfuric acid, which are far from ideal conditions.

"However, these obstacles can be overcome with breathing apparatus and acid-resistant materials," the website states.

Söhnlein told Insider that a space station designed to withstand the sulfuric acid in the clouds could enable hundreds to thousands of people to live in the Venusian atmosphere someday.

As for OceanGate, the company behind the Titan submersible has announced the suspension of its exploration and commercial operations.

This decision came after the unfortunate implosion of the submersible during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic claimed the lives of all five individuals on board: CEO Stockton Rush, British businessman Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, and Dawood's 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.