The founder of OceanGate has revealed their next plans for adventure, and this time they want to go out of this world – like, literally.
The company’s co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein recently revealed his aims to get people living on Venus in what seems like a scarily short timespan.
Söhnlein left Ocean Gate back in 2013, but still maintains a minority stake in the company. However, he has gone on to focus on space, having founded the Humans2Venus project.
Söhnlein revealed to Insider that he wishes to get 1000 people living on the hottest planet in the solar system by 2050.
“I think it is less aspirational than putting a million people on the Martian surface by 2050,” he began.
“You’re absolutely right that when you talk about going to Venus, it would raise eyebrows outside the space industry. And it even raises eyebrows inside the space industry.”
“I think I’ve been driven to help make humanity a multi-planet species since I was 11 years old, I had this recurring dream of being the commander of the first Martian colony.”
It comes after the heartbreaking news that the 5 people on board the company’s Titan sub are believed to have sadly died broke last month. It came after debris was found that was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”
The sub, named Titan, was carrying 5 people down to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic’s shipwreck in real life, which is located 3,800m below sea level, and is 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The trip is thought to have cost £195,000 per head.
It vanished on the morning of June 18 after losing contact with its mothership MV Polar Prince roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel’s 2-hour descent.
On board the sub was Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company who own the vessel and conduct the tourist trips. Alongside him was the British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-based Pakistani millionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman. The fifth person on board was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French submersible pilot who was considered one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic.
When the underwater vessel lost contact, the search effort hugely ramped up after authorities estimated that they were quickly running out of oxygen.
An update gave authorities more hope, as an aircraft detected “underwater noises in the search area.”
“As a result, ROV (remotely operated vehicle) operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue,” the Coast Guard tweeted.
It was additionally reported that a second aircraft with underwater detection abilities detected “banging sounds.”
However, in the wake of the heartbreaking discovery of the debris, the Coast Guard confirmed that these sounds were likely just ‘background ocean noise’.
Rear Admiral John Mauger explained to Sky News: “We’ve taken that information and shared it with top leading experts from the US Navy and the Canadian Navy, and they’re working on the analysis of that information, they’re continuing to work on the analysis of that information.
“The initial reports is that there’s a lot of the sounds that were generated were from background ocean noise, but they continue to … look for all available information there.”
OceanGate, who ran the expedition, released a statement addressing the heartbreaking loss.
“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” it began.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.
“Our hearts are with these 5 souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
Debris from the sub were brought ashore in Newfoundland, giving a first look at the remains of the vessel.
Pictures from the port show the debris covered in tarp as they are transferred onto trucks to be taken away.
The US Coast Guard announced that they have also recovered ‘presumed human remains’ from “within the wreckage” of the sub.
