2019
Monday, July 8, 1053 hours
Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
President Garretson looked up from a large pile of photocopied medical examination reports, lab results, and national security forms, all marked with various levels of “Confidential,” “Secret” and “Top Secret” stamps in fading red ink. He took his reading glasses off and set them on the desk next to the papers.
He looked at his NASA administrator, and briefly wondered if keeping her on from his predecessor’s administration had been a mistake.
“After we discovered this altered DNA, we let the astronauts back out into the general population?” he asked her. “Announced nothing? And withheld the information from the astronauts themselves?”
“That was President Nixon’s decision, sir — with President Johnson’s full support and concurrence. There were no symptoms, no sickness, no disease, they weren’t contagious, mitochondrial DNA is only passed down from the mother — and most importantly, we had no explanation to offer. It was felt it would cause a panic.”
“Well, NASA did a fine job of burying this. There was nothing about this in any of my transition materials — it’s like it never happened.”
“Mr. President, until last week, I knew nothing about this, either. I only knew — every NASA administrator has known — that there is a secret envelope we’re to open if ordered to begin planning a manned mission to the moon or another planet.”
“What I don’t get is that we kept going back to the moon for an additional six missions after the initial discovery of the altered DNA?”
“It was only after a few years that we noticed that the mutations in Armstrong and Aldrin were ... well, mutating even more. Changing their genetic sequence. And then the same thing happened with Conrad and Bean — it started to change, like it was reprogramming itself.
“Did these genetic changes continue?”
“Only for about five years, Mr. President. Then they stopped. By that time, though, President Nixon had cancelled all lunar missions after Apollo 17. He determined the risk was simply too high — and directed that there were to be no future manned landings. The official reason given was the cost.”
President Garretson nodded for her to continue.
“While the reasons for the various lab tests have been highly classified in the years since, the astronauts continue to have their long-term health monitored. The packet I opened in my safe gave me the information I needed to track the ongoing tests. We have noted no mtDNA changes in more than 40 years, and all of the surviving Apollo astronauts still receive an annual exam from NASA as part of our follow-up research on the effects of space travel.”
“And we don’t know what this DNA does or why it might have been implanted into them?”
“No, Mr. President.”
“And it’s in all of their cells?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Which seems impossible given what we know about cell division. It’s been one of the most challenging obstacles to our attempts to use genetic engineering to cure hereditary diseases such as cystic fibrosis: Even if we can replace the faulty gene in a cell, how do we replace it in all the body’s cells?”
Garretson nodded again, and she pressed on. “There is also this: The altered genetic sequence in their mitochondria did not cause any symptoms of mitochondrial disease. No seizures, no weakness, no organ failure, nothing. Although we didn’t associate these diseases with mitochondrial mutations until 1988, those men were tested and observed and displayed none of the symptoms we would later come to associate with mtDNA irregularities.”
“You do realize I can’t just turn around and cancel this mission without some sort of explanation to the American people? I just announced it, and it took me six months of arm twisting to get Congress to agree to fund it.”
The NASA director looked at her hands for a moment, then back at the president.
“Sir, I don’t know what to tell you. I believe that at this point in time, with the knowledge we have — and more importantly, the knowledge that we don’t have — it would be a terrible mistake to go back to the moon; for any nation to go. We simply don’t know what this DNA is, where it came from, or what it might do if it spread further. But the fact that it was placed into their mitochondria and not into the cell nucleus makes me believe it was an attempt to hide it from us.”
“I can’t make a decision like this on my own — I’m an elected politician, not God.”
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