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::Guillermo Söhnleinm told Insider he has wanted to make humanity a multi-planet species since he was 11 years old, and that OceanGate was part of that ambition.
Billionaires first.
1000 of the richest people? Sure, go for it
Err… Venus has one of the most hostile environments in the Solar System. A titanium probe can only survive there a few hours.
Dumb.
Venus has one of the most hostile environments in the Solar System.
It might seem unintuitive, but there’s an area above the clouds that’s actually really very mild as far as conditions go. It’s also closer/easier to get to than Mars and various useful components can be harvested from the atmosphere which is quite dense while Mars doesn’t have much.
Also, breathable air is less dense than the Venusian atmosphere so habitats filled with gas humans can breathe would actually be buoyant. You wouldn’t even need a pressurized spacesuit to go outside, just an air supply.
To add to this, one of the potential advantages is that you could use the temperature gradient as you drop further into the atmosphere as an energy source - making it one of the few areas in the solar system where you wouldn’t be reliant soley on solar or nuclear.
Thank God we perfected “landing somewhere in the upper atmosphere” in the 70s.
Thank God we perfected “landing somewhere in the upper atmosphere” in the 70s.
Am I misunderstanding or are you skeptical about it being possible to stop before reaching the surface? Because if so, that seems kind of weird. One would just need to deploy the balloons or whatever at the appropriate point. As far as technical challenges go, I’d guess this is actually going to be easier than safely getting something safely down to the surface.
Nah you misunderstood. I actually think it’s extremely easy to travel to Venus, drop from orbit and deply several tons of Air just at the right time for the descend to be slowly reversed until you reach the correct height.
I actually think it’s extremely easy to travel to Venus, drop from orbit and deply several tons of Air just at the right time for the descend to be slowly reversed until you reach the correct height.
Not sure why you feel the need to be snarky here.
I never said it was “easy” in the general sense. Also, I’m not sure if you’re aware of the procedures that were used to land rovers, on Mars for example. They were both quite difficult and complex, requiring precise timing and a bunch of steps to happen exactly as needed or the rover would smash into the surface or burn up on entry.
“Drop from orbit and inflate some balloons at the right time” is comparatively easy compared to the complex procedures that were used for the Mars missions. Obviously, deploying a probe on a different planet is always going to be a difficult and complicated task.
Alright the ocean gate guy can just link up with you then and we’re set
I’m talking about the approach in general. Is OceanGate guy the one to pull it off? Probably not.
If you’re being reasonable here, you have to compare the difficult with trying to create a colony on other planets like Mars. There are major challenges involved there too, like distance, lack of atmosphere, less accessible resources that could be used to maintain the colony, etc. The only thing I’m arguing here is compared to colonizing Mars, for example, there are points in favor of Venus. If you read the Wikipedia article I linked, you’ll also see this isn’t an idea OceanGate guy came up with and it’s also not really all that new either. Reputable organizations like NASA have seriously looked into this previously.
Carbon fiber though?
Carbon fiber is much better, that would probably be eaten through in a few seconds. Much less waste.
What could possibility go wrong with using a low compression strength material in a high pressure environment?
1000 billionaires, sounds like a great plan. They did so well last time.
Getting the flotation is actually not that difficult in terms of engineering since Venus has a crazy thick atmosphere. Not hard to float a balloon at an altitude of a few Earth atmospheres. Problem is your life is dependent on the reliability of the floatation system. It would take a lot of attention to fail safe design. That OceanGate organization would be like “the wrong stuff”.
There’s other engineering challenges in colonizing Venus such as solar radiation. Venus has no magnetosphere to protect against ion radiation from the Sun and being closer it’s much more intense than Mars. Then you’d have to tether the balloon somehow, Venus has some strong vertical winds. That’s going to be like thirty miles of cable to the scalding 900F surface. Venus has clouds of sulfuric acid so that’s going to present a materials challenge. It’s a tough sell, greatly easier to colonize Mars.
It’s like when Elon started blowing smoke about colonizing the moons of Jupiter. If not already aware, Jupiter emits the most radiation of any solar body second only to the Sun. The moons around Jupiter are seriously toxic to human life. They can’t even get a probe to last more than a year around Jupiter due to radiation exposure, let alone a manned spacecraft.
that timeline is laughable…
26 years sounds like a long time… but time enough to set up a floating colony on venus??? yea no…
I’d like to sign up Elon for the maiden voyage
This one requires the laughing Mexican guy with the missing teeth. Anyone got that gif in a barrel?
Easier to work with 0atm vs several thousand.
This man can’t even make a safe submarine
Spaceships are probably easier to build. No external pressure in space, no regulations for passenger space ships yet… /s
The irony is that it is probably true. Think about it. The atmosphere is one atmosphere of pressure, obviously. Space is zero. Under the ocean at the Titanic it is 400.
Yes, you only need to break the sound barrier while riding on a few thousand tons of explosive fuel to get there…
If they’re volunteers that are aware of the risks then go for it.
Is this some kind of insanity plea to get him off the hook for any negligence claims?
