Aperture Science

Referred to as Aperture Science Inc., Aperture Science or just Aperture. Aperture Science is an American scientific research outfit, based in Michigan. Originally a shower curtain manufacturer, then evolved through the years to become an experimental physics research institution, and creating a bitter rivalry with fellow research institution, Black Mesa.

History

Early Years

Founded in 1953 as Aperture Fixings by one Cave Johnson. Aperture Fixings begins operations as a manufacturer of shower curtains. Early product line provides a very low-tech portal between the inside and outside of your shower. The name Aperture Fixings was changed to Aperture Science to make the shower curtains appear more hygienic. In 1957 the Eisenhower Administration awards Aperture a contract to provide shower curtains to all branches of the military except the Navy. Making Cave Johnson a billionaire in the process.

Beginnings of the Portal Project

In 1974, Aperture Founder and CEO, Cave Johnson, is exposed to mercury while secretly developing a dangerous mercury-injected rubber sheeting from which he plans to manufacture seven deadly shower curtains to be given as gifts to each member of the House Naval Appropriations committee. 1976, Both of Cave Johnson’s kidneys fail. Brain damaged, dying, and incapable of being convinced that time is not now flowing backwards, Johnson lays out a three-tier R&D program. The results, he says, will “guarantee the continued success of Aperture Science far into the fast-approaching distant past.”

The three-tier R&D program is:

• The Heimlich Counter-Maneuver – A reliable technique for interrupting the life-saving Heimlich Maneuver.
• The Take-A-Wish Foundation – A charitable organization that will purchase wishes from the parents of terminally ill children and redistribute them to wish-deprived but otherwise healthy adults.
• “Some kind of rip in the fabric of space…that would…well, it’d be like, I don’t know, something that would help with the shower curtains I guess. I haven’t worked this idea out as much as the wish-taking one.”
  

Senate Investigation

Obedient Aperture engineers complete the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver and Take-A-Wish Foundation initiatives. The company announces products related to the research in a lavish, televised ceremony. These products immediately become wildly unpopular. After a very public string of choking and despondent sick child disasters, senior company officials are summoned before a Senate investigative committee. During these proceedings, an engineer mentions that some progress has been made on "Tier 3", the “man-sized ad hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain.” The committee is quickly and permanently recessed, and Aperture is granted an open-ended contract to continue research on the “Portal” and "Heimlich Counter-Maneuver" projects in secret. Work progresses on the “Portal” project. Several high ranking Fatah personnel choke to death on lamb chunks despite the intervention of their bodyguards.

Creation of GLaDOS

In 1986, word reaches Aperture management that another defense contractor called Black Mesa is working on a similar portal technology. In response to this news, Aperture begins developing the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS), an artificially intelligent research assistant and disk operating system. After a decade spent bringing the disk operating parts of GLaDOS to a state of more or less basic functionality, work begins on the Genetic Lifeform component. In 1998, the untested AI is activated for the first time as one of the planned activities on Aperture’s first annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day. In many ways, the initial test goes well: Within one picosecond of being switched on, GLaDOS becomes self-aware. The "going well" phase lasts for two more picoseconds, at which point GLaDOS takes control of the facility, locks everyone inside, and begins a permanent cycle of testing. Her goal: beat the hated Black Mesa in the race to develop a functioning portal technology. Days later, that race is lost when Black Mesa successfully deploys an interdimensional gate through which an alien race emerges and effectively ends the outside world.

Known Personnel

• Cave Johnson - Founder & CEO (1953 - 1976)
• Caroline - Johnson's Secretary
• Doug Rattmann - Programmer & Technician
• Henry - Programmer & Technician

Known Test Subjects

• Test Subject #1: S.J. Nye
• Test Subject #2: Lazarus Grey
• Test Subject #3: Leve Rage
• Test Subject #4: Robert C. Knoll
• Test Subject #042
• Test Subject #234
• Test Subject #1489: Charles Cardoze
• Test Subject #1490: Phil Konig
• Test Subject #1491: Christopher M. Pham
• Test Subject #1492: Arsenio Navarro
• Test Subject #1493: William D. Kent
• Test Subject #1494: Al Anderson
• Test Subject #1495: Emily Naransky
• Test Subject #1496: David C. Self
• Test Subject #1497: Doug Hopper
• Test Subject #1498: Chell
• Test Subject #1499: Marc Meaux
• Test Subject #1500: Brenda Bogenschutz
• Test Subject #1501: James Murray