In the mid-sixties of the last century, the United States of America was preparing to take revenge and finally bypass the Soviet Union in the field of space research. The Apollo program, which was entrusted with the mission of the first stage in the construction of American space superiority, did not give guarantees: problems with its implementation, on the one hand, and the uncertainty that reigned on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, did not allow us to say with confidence that the first on the moon turns out to be a United States citizen. And if it turns out to be a month or two earlier, will this be enough for the people of America to believe in their complete superiority?
And then, along with the widely advertised Apollo program, another was created. Its name "Plutonium" - the kingdom of the dead, was not advantageous for publicity, but "Plutonia" was not going to be made known to the press and television. Plutonium was a top secret project. Its goal was to achieve superiority in deep space: from Mars to Pluto itself.
But the technology capable of developing such speeds so that the journey, say to Mars, lasted weeks, and to the satellites of Saturn - months, then, in the mid-sixties, there was no. However, the designers were working on the creation of a nuclear engine and believed that the first high-speed spaceships would appear, at the latest, by the end of the eighties - early nineties. But even they will travel to Pluto for at least two to three years. In this case, the life support system, food, water, oxygen will take up a fair share of the mass of space cruisers and thus further slow down the speed. In addition, many months, and even more so many years of stay in a confined space can give rise to serious problems of a psychological nature. Then the doctors suggested putting the astronauts in suspended animation, artificial sleep at temperatures close to zero. In this case, a much less cumbersome support system was required, the need for food dropped sharply and a conflict within the crew was excluded.
But there was also a problem: no one knew in advance how a person would behave after suspended animation. There are two main groups: the first, after awakening, retains its personality, in the second, deformation occurs, people become mentally unbalanced, prone to conflicts up to murder. The only way to determine who will become whom is to conduct a trial suspended animation before the flight to weed out inappropriate candidates.
The Plutonium detachment was recruited from soldiers who served in Vietnam. Young, healthy, single men were required, preference was given to orphans. They were offered to participate in the project: first, a preliminary session of suspended animation, and then, when suitable interplanetary ships are created, they will be woken up, prepared for flight and sent into distant space. Of course, during their sleep they will retain their salary, which, placed in the bank, will also give interest, because even if someone does not get into space, they will still become a rich and respected member of society.
Twenty-eight people gave their consent and were put into artificial sleep. The medical side of the Plutonium project was led by Peter Wendell, a leading expert in the field of suspended animation, who at one time allegedly experimented with prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, but was taken under the patronage of the US intelligence services (like many other morally questionable, but professionally outstanding personalities). The experiment was carried out at a secret base in the Rocky Mountains.
Ten years, twenty years passed, but no space cruisers appeared. Moreover, the Apollo program did not leave a successor - the colonization of the Moon was considered unnecessary. Only automatic stations flew to distant planets, and (in the old "old-fashioned" way, chemical engines made it possible to reach the second cosmic speed, and then an accurate mathematical calculation brought the station to the target using the gravitational fields of large planets. There was no place for astronauts in such interplanetary vehicles.
And in March 2006, it was decided to terminate the "Plutonium" project. The failed astronauts were awakened. The exit from suspended animation was generally successful: out of twenty-eight people, twenty-six woke up. Two of them suffered a “brain death” due to a hardware failure, an irreversible coma with complete bodily integrity.
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Twenty-six people completed a one-year rehabilitation course. Peter Wendall's suspended animation system prevents the formation of contractures, muscle atrophy and other consequences of prolonged immobility, because only a little more than a day has passed according to the internal biological clock of the astronauts. Attention was paid not so much to the bodily component as to the mental one. At the same time, the astronauts were introduced to the realities of life in the 21st century.
In the spring of 2007, sixteen people who passed the suspended animation test were given complete freedom of action and left the secret base. The remaining ten required further rehabilitation: six of them were prone to suicide, and four showed all signs of aggressiveness directed outward.
The money that was waiting for the astronauts was not so big: all these years, the sums were placed in the bank account equal to the salary of a lieutenant of the sixties, which is very small compared to the present. However, years and compound interest still made the participants in the experiment people with funds.
Most of the astronauts (the biological age of the oldest at the time of immersion in suspended animation did not exceed 24 years) decided to live anew - to enter a university, military schools, and so on. They all received new documents and new biographies, similar to the witness protection program, only this time the United States government is protecting against them. According to the official version, no "secret squad of astronauts" existed, the people allegedly enrolled in it died in Vietnam, and their names appear on the famous monument of the Arlington Memorial. And therefore, if someone from the "secret squad" thinks about filing a lawsuit against the government, at best he will be sent to a clinic for the mentally ill, and at worst he will not be protected by the "witness protection system" and he will simply disappear …
R. Konstantinov. “Interesting newspaper. Mysteries of Civilization No. 7 2009