No, OceanGate did not announce plans to send 1,000 people to Venus by 2050 | Fact check

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: OceanGate announced plans to send 1,000 people to Venus by 2050

An Aug. 1 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims the company behind a recent maritime catastrophe is gearing up for a new expedition to another planet.

"Exactly a month ago, a submersible called Titan manufactured by Oceangate imploded taking lives of five billionaires including Pakistani father-son duo Shahzada and Suleman Dawood and now the company has announced to build a colony on Venus expressing plans to send 1,000 people to the planet by 2050,” reads part of the post.

It was shared more than 30 times in one week.

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Our rating: False

OceanGate Expeditions has suspended all explorations and business operations in light of its fatal expedition to the Titanic wreckage site in June. An OceanGate co-founder who left the company in 2013 has said he wants to explore sending a floating colony to the planet with a separate venture, Humans2Venus.

Söhnlein defends OceanGate, exploring Venus expedition through separate venture

OceanGate’s Titan submersible lost contact with its mothership about 90 minutes after launching toward the ocean floor to explore the Titanic wreckage on June 18. Search crews found pieces of the vessel in a debris field on the ocean floor days later. All five passengers on board, including OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush, were announced dead.

OceanGate’s website says the company has “suspended all exploration and commercial operations.”

The month after the implosion, Guillermo Söhnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Rush in 2009, told Business Insider he plans to send 1,000 people to live in Venus’ atmosphere by 2050 through his venture Humans2Venus.

“It is aspirational, but I think it’s also very doable by 2050,” Söhnlein told the outlet.

Humans2Venus’ website describes itself as a nonprofit organization “dedicated to promoting Venus as a potential long-term destination for humanity.”

Fact check: Viral images are AI, not wreckage of submersible bound for Titanic

Söhnlein, who left OceanGate a decade ago, defended his former company as it received heavy criticism about lax safety practices in the midst of the Titan search, and later said the ill-fated expedition should not prevent further human innovation.

Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees – hot enough to melt lead, according to NASA. And air pressure is 90 times that of Earth, as crushing as you would find a mile below the ocean.

Söhnlein told Business Insider that research suggests humans could survive 30 miles from Venus' surface, where temperatures and air pressure are lower.

The post also references the men who died as being "five billionaires." That is inaccurate, based on reporting from USA TODAY and others, which identified only one passenger with that description, Hamish Harding.

USA TODAY previously debunked false claims the Titan submersible was found without passengers inside, that one of its occupants was vice chairman of the World Economic Forum, and an implication that OceanGate posted a job opening for a submersible pilot after the vessel went missing.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: OceanGate co-founder planning Venus trip with new venture | Fact check