His friend died in the Titan, this submarine that was going to explore the Titanic, but he has ever crazier plans!
Guillermo Sohnlein created, with Stockton Rush, the company OceanGate in 2009 whose main project was to explore the seabed and more particularly the wreck of the Titanic, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Sohnlein left the company in 2013 while retaining a minority stake.
For this, they had imagined the Titan, this submarine controlled by a game console controller which pulverized during its descent towards the Titanic. Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, was on the submarine with four other people. They all lost their lives on June 18, 2023.
Go for Venus!
A misadventure which did not dampen Guillermo Sohnlein who now has the crazy ambition of sending 1,000 people to live in the atmosphere of the planet… Venus by 2050! Like his friend, Stockton Rush, he says he is ready to undertake the perilous journey of 38 million kilometers himself.
Sohnlein, 58, is aiming for Venus and leaves Mars to his prestigious competitor, Elon Musk, who is aiming for a human settlement on the red planet within three decades.
But Sohnlein is aiming for unexplored territory… “The Moon was interesting but others have already been there,” he told The Sun newspaper. “Mars, others will go there. We are aiming for Venus because no one has thought of going there!”
Despite its nickname as Earth’s sister planet, Venus’ conditions are completely inhospitable to humans, with scorching heat reaching 462°C. But, after a four-month journey, the entrepreneur intends to settle in floating cities about 50 km above the surface in the atmosphere of Venus.
“There is a relatively thin layer in the Venusian atmosphere where we might find the most Earth-like conditions in the solar system.”
A former U.S. Marine captain, Sohnlein always had ambitions to go to space, and as a child he dreamed of becoming commander of the first Martian colony. He will perhaps be the first Venusian commander…
