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.

  • Raisin8659@monyet.cc
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    2 years ago

    For sustainable environment, the ships, habitats, and all applicable equipment will be made with safe, state-of-the-art recyclable plastics.

    • AnAngryAlpaca@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Spaceships are probably easier to build. No external pressure in space, no regulations for passenger space ships yet… /s

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        2 years ago

        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.

        • AnAngryAlpaca@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Yes, you only need to break the sound barrier while riding on a few thousand tons of explosive fuel to get there…

  • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • Callie@pawb.social
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    2 years ago

    And I’m sure safety checks will be done to ensure the safety of everyone on board!

    Fr tho, pls send more billionaires

  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    VenusGate: Uh, spaceguard? We lost contact with the Venus colony several weeks ago. They’ve got 2 months of air so they might still be alive. Though we did learn from the last time and didn’t bolt the windows shut in case they made it back to Earth on their own and needed to get out. The CEO did complain about the smell of farts increasing and the last communication said they were able to get a few open to air out the place, so we know they work.

    NASA: Spaceguard isn’t a thing. Also the bolts weren’t the problem last time, it was the complete structural failure. Opening some windows probably allowed the pressure to equalize, which caused the vessel to drop into the “everything melts” zone. They are dead.

    VenusGate: So you won’t be sending anyone out to look for them?

    NASA: No.

  • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Yes, please go ahead.

    I will even open a bottle of sparkling wine for the occasion!

    Edit: btw, does anybody else have Nandor The Relentless‘ voice in their head whenever somebody is named Guillermo?

  • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Soo I know I’m not in the slightest the target audience for his shit. But I can say there’s no way in hell I would ever trust a vessel from that company going forward.