WEBVTT - It Came From Outer Space 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:22.836 Pushkin, there's a place in our world where the known 0:00:22.916 --> 0:00:28.036 things go. A corridor of the mind, lined with shelves 0:00:28.036 --> 0:00:34.996 cluttered with proof. Huh, rock, this could be a meteorite. Okay, 0:00:34.996 --> 0:00:40.116 it's got some strange green goo on the inside. I'll 0:00:40.156 --> 0:00:46.876 just leave that there, moldy old birthday cake, and right 0:00:46.916 --> 0:00:51.876 beside it an old poster authorized personnel only, US Government 0:00:52.156 --> 0:00:59.156 quarantine station yesh a photo of the President rolling up 0:00:59.156 --> 0:01:05.036 a sleeve getting a shot. This place, this evidence room, 0:01:05.076 --> 0:01:08.396 stores the facts that matter and matters of fact. It 0:01:08.556 --> 0:01:11.316 lies in a time between now and then, in the 0:01:11.396 --> 0:01:16.756 long shadow of doubt. The sign on the door reads 0:01:16.796 --> 0:01:23.756 the last archive step across the threshold to the Apollo 0:01:23.796 --> 0:01:27.756 eleven command module, hurtling at ten thousand, one hundred and 0:01:27.796 --> 0:01:35.836 ninety five ft per second towards the surface of the Earth. Okay, 0:01:35.836 --> 0:01:39.516 a follow eleven remains the prime story, with the world 0:01:39.556 --> 0:01:43.956 awaiting your landing today at about the eleven forty nine 0:01:43.996 --> 0:01:49.916 am Houston time, July twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine, four 0:01:49.996 --> 0:01:53.236 days after six hundred and fifty million people on Earth Watch, 0:01:53.356 --> 0:01:57.516 Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. Now that looked like 0:01:57.596 --> 0:02:00.516 the easy part. The hard part would be getting the 0:02:00.556 --> 0:02:04.676 three astronauts home. Mission Control in Houston was updating the 0:02:04.716 --> 0:02:08.236 astronauts with the latest news from Earth and cracking a 0:02:08.276 --> 0:02:13.556 few jokes. Air Canada says it has accepted twenty three 0:02:13.596 --> 0:02:16.676 hundred reservations for flights to the Moon in the past 0:02:16.756 --> 0:02:20.356 five days. It might be noted that more than one 0:02:20.436 --> 0:02:24.196 hundred have been made by men for their mothers in law. 0:02:25.476 --> 0:02:28.236 I guess that's Houston trying to keep things late, because 0:02:28.276 --> 0:02:31.236 after all, the Apollo eleven astronauts were about to pierce 0:02:31.276 --> 0:02:35.196 the atmosphere at about a thousand degrees fahrenheit and splash 0:02:35.276 --> 0:02:40.556 down into the ocean. Nashville, Tennessee now reports it is 0:02:40.596 --> 0:02:43.276 being flooded by Moon's songs. A song at the top 0:02:43.316 --> 0:02:46.956 of the bestseller's list this week is in the year 0:02:47.836 --> 0:02:51.756 twenty five twenty five. I like to imagine to hear 0:02:51.836 --> 0:02:54.756 in my head NASA Command in Houston playing that song 0:02:55.116 --> 0:02:59.076 while guiding the astronaut's reentry, preparing them for what's to 0:02:59.116 --> 0:03:10.956 come in twenty five twenty five. If man is still alive, 0:03:13.556 --> 0:03:22.756 if woman can servive, they may find eleven and at 0:03:24.476 --> 0:03:29.236 eleven Horn at Quadri Flag Dot are over our better 0:03:32.276 --> 0:04:01.236 train there WI the water r right right. The Apollo 0:04:01.276 --> 0:04:04.356 eleven modules splashed down into the Pacific Ocean, not too 0:04:04.396 --> 0:04:07.716 far from Hawaii, where the astronauts were to be retrieved 0:04:07.876 --> 0:04:12.516 by waiting swimmers. This is where the story often ends. 0:04:12.756 --> 0:04:16.916 The astronauts safely returned to Earth. Our world knit closer together. 0:04:17.596 --> 0:04:19.956 We went to the Moon. They went to the Moon, 0:04:20.356 --> 0:04:24.036 and they came back. But let that mission control tape 0:04:24.116 --> 0:04:27.556 roll just a few seconds longer after splash down, and 0:04:27.716 --> 0:04:32.156 things start to get a little strange, And the first 0:04:32.196 --> 0:04:35.676 astronaut has been scrubbed down, and now the astronauts are 0:04:35.676 --> 0:04:41.116 scrubbing down the swimmer. Immediately after contact, the astronauts were 0:04:41.156 --> 0:04:44.236 scrubbed down by a swimmer, washed from head to toe 0:04:44.836 --> 0:04:47.756 while floating in the middle of the ocean, because NASA 0:04:47.916 --> 0:04:52.036 was worried about a moon plague. Nobody had ever been 0:04:52.116 --> 0:04:54.836 to the Moon before, and NASA had to wonder what 0:04:54.996 --> 0:04:58.036 if there was life there? Not aliens with big eyes 0:04:58.076 --> 0:05:03.236 and weird shaped skulls, but bacteria viruses. No one knew 0:05:03.276 --> 0:05:05.916 what the astronauts might bring back with them, So after 0:05:06.036 --> 0:05:08.716 the astronauts came back to Earth, they did something we 0:05:09.236 --> 0:05:12.796 day in the age of masks and COVID tests know 0:05:12.956 --> 0:05:18.156 all too well they quarantined. Most extraordinary part of the 0:05:18.196 --> 0:05:21.276 Apollo eleven flight to the Moon will start after they 0:05:21.356 --> 0:05:24.636 get back, the beginning of the most rigorous three weeks 0:05:24.716 --> 0:05:30.996 quarantine any human beings have ever had to endure. Welcome 0:05:31.076 --> 0:05:33.236 to the Last Archive, the show about how we know 0:05:33.356 --> 0:05:35.476 what we know, how we used to know things, and 0:05:35.596 --> 0:05:37.716 why it seems lately as if we don't know anything 0:05:37.756 --> 0:05:41.276 at all. I'm Jill Lapour. This episode picks up where 0:05:41.276 --> 0:05:44.036 our last one left off, the end of the Moon mission. 0:05:44.836 --> 0:05:47.156 I think the Apollo mission is a rift in history, 0:05:47.516 --> 0:05:51.356 a hinge where everything changed, a fracture in time and space. 0:05:52.476 --> 0:05:56.396 We used to look at the stars and wonder. After Apollo, 0:05:56.556 --> 0:06:00.516 we'd seen space as something else, cold, lifeless, a vacuum, 0:06:01.276 --> 0:06:05.156 or if there was life out there was dangerous. That 0:06:05.316 --> 0:06:09.396 splashdown led to waves of doubt, doubt about science, a 0:06:09.556 --> 0:06:14.876 wave we're still riding today, a tidal wave still crashing. 0:06:18.676 --> 0:06:21.356 When the astronauts landed safely on Earth, or at least 0:06:21.356 --> 0:06:26.236 in the ocean, President Richard Nixon celebrated, this is the 0:06:26.356 --> 0:06:30.036 greatest week, and the history of the world has the creation, 0:06:30.956 --> 0:06:34.316 but the danger hadn't entirely passed. Even before the astronauts 0:06:34.356 --> 0:06:36.516 went to the Moon, scientists had begun to plan for 0:06:36.596 --> 0:06:41.116 the risk, however small, that the astronauts might bring something back. 0:06:41.836 --> 0:06:44.036 Do you think there really is any chance of bringing 0:06:44.076 --> 0:06:49.156 back banks from the Moon. It's an exceedingly unlikely event. Indeed, 0:06:49.516 --> 0:06:52.276 sure it was exceedingly unlikely. But what if it did happen, 0:06:52.756 --> 0:06:55.636 And what if normal disinfectants couldn't kill it, what if 0:06:55.716 --> 0:06:59.956 medicine couldn't cure it? Scientists painted a picture frightening enough 0:07:00.396 --> 0:07:03.876 that NASA built the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, where 0:07:03.876 --> 0:07:07.916 the returning astronauts were whisked after splashdown to quarantine for 0:07:07.996 --> 0:07:11.116 twenty one days. NASA kind of made a big show 0:07:11.156 --> 0:07:14.116 of it all, rather than Nixon waving to the astronauts, 0:07:14.156 --> 0:07:17.516 the curtains have been drawn. There they are in the 0:07:17.916 --> 0:07:23.596 rear window. The curtains have been drawn. I love that. 0:07:23.796 --> 0:07:27.076 It's as if the window is a little theater. Today 0:07:27.156 --> 0:07:30.156 people use the term hygiene theater to talk about the 0:07:30.236 --> 0:07:33.396 things we do to protect against coronavirus, when a lot 0:07:33.436 --> 0:07:36.036 of those things probably don't make any difference, Like a 0:07:36.116 --> 0:07:38.516 rental car agency that vacuums the car in front of you, 0:07:39.156 --> 0:07:41.996 or a hotel with elevator operators who pressed the buttons 0:07:42.156 --> 0:07:44.316 with gloves on and then wipe down the buttons after 0:07:44.396 --> 0:07:47.596 each press. Anyway, did these things really do anything to 0:07:47.636 --> 0:07:51.796 protect against COVID nineteen? Probably not, but it makes some 0:07:51.876 --> 0:07:54.996 people more comfortable with the risks they've already decided to take. 0:07:56.916 --> 0:07:59.956 Neil Armstrong celebrated his birthday in the quarantine tank. They 0:07:59.996 --> 0:08:02.916 had a cake and everything. The astronauts waved at their 0:08:02.956 --> 0:08:07.236 wives from behind plate glass. Everyone took the quarantine seriously, 0:08:07.876 --> 0:08:10.836 but it really was hygie theater. I mean, after the 0:08:10.916 --> 0:08:14.236 splashdown as the module bobbed in the water, the astronauts 0:08:14.276 --> 0:08:16.956 inside had opened the hatch and let all the air out, 0:08:17.596 --> 0:08:20.356 and after the swimmer wiped the astronauts down, he threw 0:08:20.396 --> 0:08:22.836 the rag in the ocean. If there really had been 0:08:22.876 --> 0:08:26.636 a moon plague, we'd all be dead by now. Later, 0:08:26.836 --> 0:08:29.116 when people started claiming the whole mission had been a hoax, 0:08:29.716 --> 0:08:32.516 the quarantine was one of those fishy details that they 0:08:32.636 --> 0:08:37.276 fixated on. Why were the first astronauts held in quarantine 0:08:37.716 --> 0:08:40.756 so long after their first trip when most scientists agree 0:08:40.796 --> 0:08:43.676 that the Moon is sterile and there's no chance of 0:08:43.876 --> 0:08:48.636 disease transmission. That's the Queen of conspiracy, May Brussel on 0:08:48.756 --> 0:08:52.636 our community radio show in nineteen seventy seven. Was it 0:08:52.756 --> 0:08:56.156 because they needed a period of reconditioning after the spurious trip? 0:08:56.756 --> 0:08:59.236 Or could they not bear to face hordes of cheering 0:08:59.356 --> 0:09:03.556 people so soon after playing their role in this show 0:09:03.676 --> 0:09:08.876 on Earth? Seriously? Anyway back to nineteen sixty nine, cover 0:09:09.396 --> 0:09:12.956 protective garments. These voyagers to and from the Moon went 0:09:13.036 --> 0:09:17.236 into isolation. They were remained in this mobile quarantine facility. 0:09:17.916 --> 0:09:21.316 One person watching all this, the reentry the quarantine was 0:09:21.356 --> 0:09:25.076 a twenty six year old recent medical school graduate, Michael Crechton. 0:09:26.196 --> 0:09:28.556 This guy, he was hard to miss. He was six 0:09:28.636 --> 0:09:31.076 foot nine. Crichton would go on to write some of 0:09:31.076 --> 0:09:34.276 the biggest bestsellers of the twentieth century, books and films 0:09:34.356 --> 0:09:38.396 like Jurassic Park. He created the TV show Er. One 0:09:38.436 --> 0:09:41.956 of his less successful projects was Westworld, released as a 0:09:41.996 --> 0:09:45.716 film in nineteen seventy three, the decades later became an 0:09:45.836 --> 0:09:49.956 HBO series. Pretty early in his prolific career, Crechton got 0:09:50.036 --> 0:09:53.836 invited onto late night TV the Dick Cavett Show. My 0:09:53.956 --> 0:09:56.716 next guest is Michael Crichton, he's an unusual young man. 0:09:56.836 --> 0:09:59.716 During the four years that he spent at tim Medical School, 0:09:59.796 --> 0:10:02.716 he suddenly got the writing bug, wrote seven novels, a 0:10:02.796 --> 0:10:08.196 couple of movies, and became a doctor the writing bug. Yes, 0:10:08.236 --> 0:10:11.436 they haven't cured that. Crichton got the writing bug at Harvard, 0:10:11.476 --> 0:10:14.076 where he was an English major. One time he turned 0:10:14.116 --> 0:10:16.636 in an essay that had actually been written by George Orwell. 0:10:16.916 --> 0:10:19.476 When the professor gave him a B minus, Crechton quit 0:10:19.596 --> 0:10:23.396 English and moved to anthropology. After graduation, he taught at 0:10:23.436 --> 0:10:26.956 Cambridge University, doing research on skulls from the British Museum. 0:10:27.676 --> 0:10:30.036 He went back to Harvard for medical school, but then 0:10:30.076 --> 0:10:32.836 he started thinking about writing seriously as a way to 0:10:32.916 --> 0:10:35.356 make some money. And my purpose was really to see 0:10:35.396 --> 0:10:38.356 if I could write something that the average reader could 0:10:38.396 --> 0:10:41.116 come away with a little information. Normally books didn't take 0:10:41.196 --> 0:10:43.516 him long, but there was one story he wanted to 0:10:43.556 --> 0:10:46.956 write and couldn't quite crack. It was a story about 0:10:46.996 --> 0:10:50.436 a disease that came from space. He'd been poking at 0:10:50.476 --> 0:10:54.356 it for years, but it just felt implausible to him. Then, 0:10:54.396 --> 0:10:57.116 a while before the Apollo astronauts came crashing back down 0:10:57.156 --> 0:11:00.676 to Earth. Word spread about Nassa's plan for the quarantine. 0:11:01.396 --> 0:11:04.996 Crechton heard about it, and that's when everything clicked. He 0:11:05.076 --> 0:11:08.156 haven't read The Andromedistrain. It's a science fiction book about 0:11:08.156 --> 0:11:13.756 a giant, hearnie it. The Andromedist Strain is not about 0:11:13.876 --> 0:11:16.396 a giant Hernia. But it is the book that truly 0:11:16.476 --> 0:11:19.396 launched Crechton as a bestselling author, and it did that 0:11:19.596 --> 0:11:22.916 by crystallizing all kinds of fears about science run a muck. 0:11:24.476 --> 0:11:27.916 The Andromedist Strain opens with a government satellite called Scoop 0:11:27.996 --> 0:11:31.476 seven crash landing in a town in Arizona. So far 0:11:31.676 --> 0:11:35.236 so plausible satellites do fall to Earth. Crechton had done 0:11:35.276 --> 0:11:38.996 his research anyway. Some scientists go to recover the satellite, 0:11:39.396 --> 0:11:42.356 only to find that nearly everyone in the town is dead. 0:11:42.996 --> 0:11:46.116 The scientists die to it. Turns out the satellite was 0:11:46.196 --> 0:11:52.476 carrying a highly contagious pathogen from space Andromeda. Michael Creton 0:11:52.556 --> 0:11:55.236 is always at great timing. The novel came out two 0:11:55.316 --> 0:11:57.996 months before the Apollo eleve, an astronaut, splashed down in 0:11:58.036 --> 0:12:02.116 the ocean. It was a blockbuster even while Neil Armstrong 0:12:02.156 --> 0:12:05.756 and those guys were in quarantine eating Armstrong's birthday cake. 0:12:06.236 --> 0:12:10.636 Americans were devouring the Andromedist Strain. Two years later, Universal 0:12:10.716 --> 0:12:14.996 released it as a movie. This is a recording. State 0:12:15.076 --> 0:12:18.476 your name and your message, and hang up Major zor 0:12:18.556 --> 0:12:22.436 Manchik Scoop Mission Control A twelve. We have evidence here 0:12:22.476 --> 0:12:24.836 on film of a natural death caused by Scoop seven 0:12:24.916 --> 0:12:28.516 Returning to Earth. Crichton wrote The Andromeda Strain like a 0:12:28.556 --> 0:12:31.596 piece of very learned science journalism. He filled the book 0:12:31.716 --> 0:12:34.796 with real facts. He even included a fake appendix and 0:12:34.876 --> 0:12:38.516 a fake bibliography. The makers of the movie took the queue. 0:12:39.036 --> 0:12:42.556 They set the film in an elaborate, scientifically plausible disease 0:12:42.636 --> 0:12:48.476 laboratory called Wildfire. An actual journal Clinical Infectious Diseases published 0:12:48.516 --> 0:12:53.236 an actual article calling Andromeda Strain the most significant, scientifically 0:12:53.276 --> 0:12:58.116 accurate and prototypic film of its kind. Until now, Wildfire 0:12:58.116 --> 0:13:01.476 has been like a game, never believe this could really happen. 0:13:02.556 --> 0:13:05.076 The point of the novel is that this really could happen. 0:13:05.836 --> 0:13:08.676 After the satellite crash lands on Earth, the government calls 0:13:08.716 --> 0:13:12.516 in five top scientists. They're moved to that secret lab 0:13:12.836 --> 0:13:17.276 Wildfire burrowed deep underground. They're meant to study Andromeda, to 0:13:17.436 --> 0:13:21.116 learn its secrets and how to stop it. What they discover, though, 0:13:21.196 --> 0:13:24.236 is that Andromeda isn't like a normal Earth organism. It's 0:13:24.276 --> 0:13:27.156 not a virus, it's not some kind of bacteria. It 0:13:27.316 --> 0:13:29.756 was exactly what Carl Sagan and other scientists had been 0:13:29.796 --> 0:13:34.916 so worried about, an entirely unknown alien organism potentially infecting 0:13:35.316 --> 0:13:40.036 all of us, dividing and mutating at the same time, 0:13:40.316 --> 0:13:44.436 and nothing to stop it. Normal checks and balances don't 0:13:44.476 --> 0:13:48.436 exist for it. In the Andromeda strain, scientists find themselves 0:13:48.476 --> 0:13:51.436 in a scenario where the laws of nature, centuries of 0:13:51.516 --> 0:13:56.396 scientific inquiry are moot. That fear just radiates out of 0:13:56.436 --> 0:13:59.796 America in the late nineteen sixties, the Adam Bomb pollution 0:13:59.996 --> 0:14:03.636 Computer's gone rogue. Crechton is a key to understanding this 0:14:03.876 --> 0:14:06.476 fear of the future. So I decided to call a 0:14:06.596 --> 0:14:10.836 Michael Crechton expert. So, just backing up, can you tell 0:14:10.956 --> 0:14:13.156 us how you got interested in Michael Gryton? Did you 0:14:13.236 --> 0:14:15.276 read you know? Did you see Jurassic Park as a kid? 0:14:15.676 --> 0:14:18.396 Jurassic Park was, in fact the first movie that I 0:14:18.516 --> 0:14:22.876 saw in the theater without parental supervision, and I remember 0:14:23.676 --> 0:14:25.436 going to the theater and being like, I guess I'm 0:14:25.436 --> 0:14:28.396 not going to be a paleontologist because that career will 0:14:28.436 --> 0:14:32.316 be obsolete. Joanna Rayden is an amazing historian of science 0:14:32.396 --> 0:14:35.676 at Yale. She's writing a book about Michael Creighton. In 0:14:35.756 --> 0:14:38.516 the course of studying post war ideas about science, she 0:14:38.596 --> 0:14:42.596 started seeing Creton everywhere, not just in science fiction, but 0:14:42.916 --> 0:14:48.756 interacting with and criticizing actual science and scientists. He goes 0:14:48.836 --> 0:14:53.116 to medical school and it becomes disgruntled with what he 0:14:53.236 --> 0:14:56.876 observes as a culture that has embraced new technology but 0:14:56.996 --> 0:15:00.676 hasn't updated its morality, that they're not willing to or 0:15:00.756 --> 0:15:03.516 able to take seriously the consequences of what it's going 0:15:03.556 --> 0:15:08.556 to mean to manipulate life. Creighton was only a toddler 0:15:08.556 --> 0:15:11.676 when the at M bombs fell on Hiroshima in Nagasaki. 0:15:12.476 --> 0:15:14.836 He grew up watching science change in the shadow of 0:15:14.876 --> 0:15:18.116 the bomb. Science it seemed had won the war, so 0:15:18.276 --> 0:15:21.916 the government began investing massively in research, and scientists had 0:15:21.956 --> 0:15:24.276 a lot of say and where the money went. They 0:15:24.356 --> 0:15:29.596 became close government advisors and popular heroes. In nineteen sixty, 0:15:29.676 --> 0:15:34.316 Time magazine named scientists just scientists in general, the men 0:15:34.436 --> 0:15:37.876 of the year. Six years later, Time released an issue 0:15:37.916 --> 0:15:42.196 with the cover story is God Dead? The answer yeah, 0:15:42.236 --> 0:15:46.276 because now we have scientists. The US government had spent 0:15:46.396 --> 0:15:49.676 fifty million dollars on scientific research in nineteen thirty nine. 0:15:50.316 --> 0:15:54.356 In nineteen seventy it spent almost fifteen billion dollars. Most 0:15:54.396 --> 0:15:58.076 of that was for the Department of Defense. M I 0:15:58.196 --> 0:16:00.556 seen is more than one hundred million dollars a year 0:16:00.636 --> 0:16:03.516 from the federal government to a conductor a search. Most 0:16:03.556 --> 0:16:07.436 of it relates to the raging of rule. Scientists had 0:16:07.476 --> 0:16:09.636 the power of gods, and like God, the things they 0:16:09.676 --> 0:16:13.716 did were often mysterious, secret and a little menacing. The 0:16:13.876 --> 0:16:16.876 nineteen forty six Atomic Energy Act had been introduced by 0:16:16.916 --> 0:16:20.036 a senator who called the bombing of Hiroshima the greatest 0:16:20.076 --> 0:16:22.716 event in world history since the birth of Jesus Christ, 0:16:23.156 --> 0:16:25.796 and treated atomic science as a kind of religious secret. 0:16:26.276 --> 0:16:28.836 You couldn't really be sure what scientists were doing, but 0:16:28.996 --> 0:16:31.396 chances were it had to do with war, and by 0:16:31.476 --> 0:16:34.556 Crechton's adulthood, the Vietnam War had called the worship of 0:16:34.596 --> 0:16:40.396 science into question, knocked the scientists off their plints. All 0:16:40.436 --> 0:16:43.036 of this finds a place in the paranoid plot of 0:16:43.116 --> 0:16:48.196 the Andromeda strain. Crechton was very upset about that kind 0:16:48.236 --> 0:16:50.836 of secrecy. This is Hallmark. What he's so effective at 0:16:50.916 --> 0:16:55.396 doing is taking the kind of incoate emotions about emerging 0:16:55.436 --> 0:16:58.516 science and technology and telling readers what they should be 0:16:58.596 --> 0:17:02.276 afraid of what specifically. During the years Crechton was in 0:17:02.356 --> 0:17:05.236 college and medical school, his fellow students were afraid of 0:17:05.276 --> 0:17:08.236 the secrets being kept from them, the things their professors 0:17:08.316 --> 0:17:11.836 did in the name of national security. Students protested at 0:17:11.916 --> 0:17:15.076 universities across the country. They tried to hold their universities 0:17:15.116 --> 0:17:18.876 to account. The year Crechton finished Harvard Medical School nineteen 0:17:18.956 --> 0:17:23.236 sixty nine, Harvard undergraduates occupied university Hall and kicked out 0:17:23.276 --> 0:17:27.196 the president and the deans. They clashed with police officers violently. 0:17:27.716 --> 0:17:31.356 On the day Crechton graduated, the mood was tense. This 0:17:31.556 --> 0:17:35.436 commencement isn't a property, it is an obstanity. Our interested 0:17:35.556 --> 0:17:38.636 students do not lie in the key party with these criminals, 0:17:38.956 --> 0:17:42.396 these fewty benets and rocket fallers. It lies in fighting them, 0:17:42.396 --> 0:17:44.276 in alliance with the people, and we should get out 0:17:44.316 --> 0:17:47.756 of here. NBC News reported that for the first time 0:17:47.796 --> 0:17:51.516 in Harvard's history, students walked out of their own graduation ceremony. 0:17:52.116 --> 0:17:55.316 Some threatened to burn their diplomas. I don't know if 0:17:55.356 --> 0:17:57.996 Michael Crechton walked out or not, but that tension, that 0:17:58.196 --> 0:18:01.836 skepticism of the establishment and especially of the secrecy of 0:18:01.916 --> 0:18:05.836 government science, it's all over his work. In the Andromeda Strain, 0:18:05.996 --> 0:18:08.316 most of the scientists don't even know the original purpose 0:18:08.356 --> 0:18:11.436 of that Scoops satellite. They came crashing back down to Earth. 0:18:12.316 --> 0:18:14.076 We don't know much more than when we got here. 0:18:14.636 --> 0:18:17.876 We know about Scoop now, it's possible, but Scoop found 0:18:17.996 --> 0:18:21.236 was no accident. I suspect they were looking for the 0:18:21.356 --> 0:18:26.236 ultimate biological weapon. The Andromedis Strain is about a world 0:18:26.276 --> 0:18:30.196 where the government pays scientists to develop weapons that could 0:18:30.236 --> 0:18:33.476 wipe out life on Earth, and it's all done in secret. 0:18:34.436 --> 0:18:37.636 At Harvard an mit. In nineteen sixty nine, when students 0:18:37.676 --> 0:18:39.716 found out the kind of work their professors were doing 0:18:39.796 --> 0:18:44.236 for the war in Vietnam, napalm, psychological warfare, they held 0:18:44.316 --> 0:18:48.796 protests and even staged mock trials. In the Andromedis Strain, 0:18:49.076 --> 0:18:51.876 the scientists themselves come to realize what their work is 0:18:51.916 --> 0:18:56.956 really for. Wildfire was built for jerm warfare, wildfire and 0:18:57.156 --> 0:19:00.716 Scoop's not true, Ruth, I learned about Scoop the same 0:19:00.796 --> 0:19:02.796 time you did. The purpose of Scoop was to find 0:19:02.876 --> 0:19:05.756 new biological weapons in outer space and then used wildfire 0:19:05.796 --> 0:19:08.556 to develop them. It's stink Stall, you're clawing your tops. 0:19:08.596 --> 0:19:13.556 We have no another giant leap from any kind. I 0:19:13.716 --> 0:19:17.476 wish I could believe you. The SCOOP satellite hadn't just 0:19:17.596 --> 0:19:21.356 accidentally brought home this terrible pathogen. It had been sent 0:19:21.476 --> 0:19:27.316 to search for possible biological weapons. Crichton was raising an alarm, 0:19:27.836 --> 0:19:30.636 and a lot of people shared his fears, not least 0:19:30.676 --> 0:19:33.396 because of all the revelations about chemical warfare in Vietnam. 0:19:34.716 --> 0:19:37.836 Hear the androministran came out in theaters. Crechton published an 0:19:37.876 --> 0:19:41.116 op ed in The New York Times decrying scientific secrecy. 0:19:42.836 --> 0:19:47.356 He believes that there are lessons from physics that life science. 0:19:47.676 --> 0:19:51.516 Life scientists should be learning, that they should be integrating 0:19:52.236 --> 0:19:57.276 an effort to deal with accountability and social responsibility into 0:19:57.356 --> 0:20:01.476 the mainstream of science. And he's upset because he sees 0:20:01.556 --> 0:20:05.636 that possibility slipping away. Do you want to cultivate a 0:20:05.716 --> 0:20:11.756 humility and self reflection? Absolutely? In some ways, Crichton's critique 0:20:11.836 --> 0:20:15.236 caught on, or at least public support for government funded 0:20:15.236 --> 0:20:20.756 scientific research seemed to fall, which wasn't really a good thing. Gradually, 0:20:20.876 --> 0:20:24.596 the Apollo Missians lost the public support. In nineteen seventy two, 0:20:25.116 --> 0:20:28.876 NASA terminated the program. We went to the Moon, we 0:20:29.036 --> 0:20:34.676 came back, and then we stayed home and confronted a 0:20:34.796 --> 0:20:45.436 different plague. Seventy you've got to come and be automating. Five. 0:20:46.916 --> 0:20:51.876 Maybe you around it, so Fa Shafe gives time, or 0:20:51.956 --> 0:21:04.916 the judgments, day's gonna shake his money? Where has been? 0:21:05.916 --> 0:21:22.236 Or Carrots down and Strong. Michael Crichton's novel The Andromeda 0:21:22.276 --> 0:21:27.476 Strain came out in nineteen sixty nine. In nineteen seventy six, 0:21:28.196 --> 0:21:31.436 another disease appeared to be in the air. It didn't 0:21:31.476 --> 0:21:36.956 come from space. It came, it seemed from pigs. Joe 0:21:37.036 --> 0:21:39.476 brought it home from the office. He gave it to 0:21:39.596 --> 0:21:43.396 Betty and one of these kids, and to Betty's mother, 0:21:44.276 --> 0:21:46.956 But Betty's mother went back to California the next day. 0:21:47.716 --> 0:21:49.876 On her way to the airport, she gave it to 0:21:49.956 --> 0:21:53.796 a cab driver, a ticket engine and one of the 0:21:53.956 --> 0:21:58.116 charming stewards at Scoop Joe's kid gave it to some 0:21:58.236 --> 0:22:01.556 other kids, and missus Merrill got it and gave it 0:22:01.636 --> 0:22:05.916 to her husband In California. Betty's mother gave it to 0:22:05.996 --> 0:22:08.956 her best friend Dotty, but Dotty had a heart condition 0:22:09.116 --> 0:22:13.076 and she died before she died. This uncanny and really 0:22:13.156 --> 0:22:15.876 hard to listen to public service announcement is part of 0:22:15.916 --> 0:22:19.636 a much forgotten moment in public health history, the nineteen 0:22:19.716 --> 0:22:23.996 seventy six swine flu scare. If a swine flu epidemic comes, 0:22:24.556 --> 0:22:27.196 this is how it could spread. You will want to 0:22:27.236 --> 0:22:31.196 be protected, especially if you're elderly or chronically ill. Get 0:22:31.236 --> 0:22:38.036 a shot of protection, a swine flu shot. The story 0:22:38.116 --> 0:22:42.076 begins just after New Year's Day nineteen seventy six. Fort Dix, 0:22:42.116 --> 0:22:44.916 an army base in New Jersey. The barracks filled up 0:22:44.956 --> 0:22:48.356 with new recruits. A couple of weeks later, some of 0:22:48.436 --> 0:22:51.876 them started to get sick. It looked like the flu, 0:22:52.076 --> 0:22:55.516 a bad flu. People went to the hospital. One man died. 0:22:56.196 --> 0:22:59.076 Doctors from the Centers for Disease Control were sent samples 0:22:59.116 --> 0:23:02.516 of the virus. By mid February, they'd run their tests, 0:23:03.076 --> 0:23:08.036 four came back positive for swine flu. Today, there is 0:23:08.076 --> 0:23:12.076 news of a new potentially very dangerous influenza strain. Health 0:23:12.116 --> 0:23:14.316 officials say it may be related to the strain that 0:23:14.476 --> 0:23:18.356 killed so many people in nineteen eighteen. In nineteen eighteen, 0:23:18.796 --> 0:23:22.556 an influenza pandemic took the lives of fifty million people worldwide. 0:23:23.156 --> 0:23:26.316 That was a flu strain that jumped species and infected humans. 0:23:26.756 --> 0:23:29.836 So in nineteen seventy six, swine flu wasn't a completely 0:23:30.076 --> 0:23:33.276 novel virus, But scientists believe if you hadn't been alive 0:23:33.316 --> 0:23:37.756 in nineteen eighteen, you wouldn't have immunity. There's no vaccine 0:23:37.796 --> 0:23:40.956 for the new swine virus, but one could be developed 0:23:41.196 --> 0:23:45.796 if there's an epidemic. Antibody tests seemed to indicate that 0:23:45.876 --> 0:23:48.196 as many as five hundred recruits at Fort Dix had 0:23:48.236 --> 0:23:52.036 been infected by swine flu. It hadn't been detected outside 0:23:52.036 --> 0:23:56.676 the base yet, but it could be silently spreading. The 0:23:56.756 --> 0:24:00.756 head of the CDC, doctor David Sensor, wanted a vaccine made, 0:24:00.916 --> 0:24:03.436 and he wanted as many Americans as possible to get it. 0:24:03.836 --> 0:24:06.516 He said it was unacceptable to plan for less than 0:24:06.596 --> 0:24:10.876 one hundred percent coverage. He made his urgently to President 0:24:10.956 --> 0:24:16.076 Gerald Ford. Implementing this vaccination program would cost one hundred 0:24:16.076 --> 0:24:19.996 and thirty four million dollars, but without it, Ford's advisers 0:24:20.076 --> 0:24:22.516 projected that as many as a million Americans could die 0:24:22.596 --> 0:24:26.316 from the flu in nineteen seventy six alone. Ford faced 0:24:26.436 --> 0:24:28.956 two bad options. He would look terrible if he spent 0:24:29.036 --> 0:24:31.596 the money and no pandemic came. If he didn't pull 0:24:31.636 --> 0:24:34.356 the trigger and the pandemic did come, he would look 0:24:34.396 --> 0:24:37.876 even worse. In in nineteen seventy six, he was facing 0:24:37.916 --> 0:24:42.156 an election. I am asking each and every American to 0:24:42.316 --> 0:24:46.756 make certain he or she receives an inoculation this fall. 0:24:47.516 --> 0:24:49.556 The facts that have been presented to me in the 0:24:49.636 --> 0:24:52.556 last few days have come from many of the best 0:24:52.756 --> 0:24:57.876 medical minds in this country. Ford approved the massive inoculation budget. 0:24:58.476 --> 0:25:00.996 The vaccine was to be grown in chicken eggs. The 0:25:01.116 --> 0:25:05.076 Secretary of Agriculture got involved, telling everyone the roosters of 0:25:05.156 --> 0:25:11.036 America are ready to do their duty. Pretty much immediately though, 0:25:11.356 --> 0:25:14.476 a lot of Americans were suspicious of the national vaccine plan. 0:25:15.676 --> 0:25:17.316 As you know if you listen to the first season 0:25:17.396 --> 0:25:21.116 of The Last Archive, Americans have historically always been suspicious 0:25:21.156 --> 0:25:25.516 of national vaccine plans. Also, think about for his awkward position, 0:25:25.916 --> 0:25:29.116 he'd become president in nineteen seventy four, when Nixon resigned, 0:25:29.636 --> 0:25:33.396 and then, despite all the criminality the Watergate hearings had exposed, 0:25:33.756 --> 0:25:37.876 Ford had pardoned Nixon. Some people thought this vaccine program 0:25:38.116 --> 0:25:41.676 looked more political than scientific, as if either Ford were 0:25:41.716 --> 0:25:44.956 getting pressured by the scientists, or else he was pressuring 0:25:44.996 --> 0:25:49.876 the scientists to make him look good. The administration's plan 0:25:50.036 --> 0:25:54.196 to inoculate nearly everybody against swine flu is in trouble. 0:25:55.036 --> 0:25:58.876 Quickly things got harry. Legal battles very nearly held up 0:25:58.916 --> 0:26:02.636 the whole vaccination project. Then when the vaccines were finally 0:26:02.756 --> 0:26:06.636 rolled out, it all went to hell. Now four thousand 0:26:06.676 --> 0:26:09.756 Americans acclaiming damages from Uncle Sam think to three and 0:26:09.876 --> 0:26:13.076 a half billion dollars because of what happened when they 0:26:13.116 --> 0:26:16.476 took that shot. That's from a sixteen minutes investigation that 0:26:16.596 --> 0:26:19.356 came out a few years later. In nineteen seventy six. 0:26:19.596 --> 0:26:22.676 The government had mobilized the country with ads urging Americans 0:26:22.756 --> 0:26:26.956 to roll up your sleeves. Millions had obliged, But then 0:26:27.036 --> 0:26:29.476 came reports that a small number of people who were 0:26:29.556 --> 0:26:34.196 vaccinated had developed something called killone Baret syndrome, a sort 0:26:34.196 --> 0:26:38.956 of paralysis in that sixteen minutes documentary Mike Wallace quirrelled 0:26:39.196 --> 0:26:43.276 now XCDC head David Sensor about how much the public 0:26:43.396 --> 0:26:46.956 knew about the risks. You didn't feel it was necessary 0:26:46.996 --> 0:26:51.556 to tell the con people that information. I think that 0:26:52.156 --> 0:26:55.116 over the years we have tried to inform the American 0:26:55.196 --> 0:26:59.076 people as fully as possible. It really did look as 0:26:59.116 --> 0:27:02.116 though the government had been lying, even though it hadn't. 0:27:02.956 --> 0:27:06.516 But the government had another problem. It turned out that 0:27:06.596 --> 0:27:10.116