OceanGate co-founder wants to colonize the moon by 2063

(NewsNation) — Over a year after the Titan submersible imploded, the co-founder of OceanGate says he wants to colonize the moon and create a joint economic system with the Earth by 2063. 

Guillermo Söhnlein, co-founder of OceanGate, told the Independent that the technology to create a society that links the Earth and the moon is already available and that it could become a “thriving community” by 2063. 

Söhnlein is a chairman of the Waypaver Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to make humanity a multiplanet species. One of the foundation’s projects is Project Moon Hut, which plans to begin the operation by placing a hut that is “comparable to a double-wide trailer that is commonly used on job construction sites” on the moon by 2031.

This would allow for four to eight people to begin living on the moon and begin the assembly of an industrial park that could house 90 people. 

According to a statement from the project, the moon could then be utilized for “discovery, manufacturing, and selling products from the Moon to the Earth,” thus beginning what the foundation calls the “Mearth” economic system.

This project claims that this would allow a “mini-city” of 578 people on the moon by 2046 and eventually a “thriving community” of 1,644 people by 2063.

Söhnlein also founded the Humans2Venus Foundation in 2020, which aims to colonize Venus. Although Venus' gravity is similar to that of Earth, the atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide, and the planet can reach temperatures of over 800 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA. 

However, these obstacles can be overcome, according to the Humans2Venus Foundation. The foundation wants to create structures in the air about 31 miles over the surface of Venus.