ganimedes

I gonna be honest I only did this cause I wanted to see him get dragged off by balloons

Original image ↓

I (52M) was in charge of directing the first manned round trip to another planet. The mission was already in the advanced planning stage when signs of intelligent life was discovered at the planet, so the mission profile was changed to include investigating the alien artifact. By direct presidential order its existence was kept a complete secret, because of the danger of cultural shock, and to prevent our enemies from seizing it.

The original crew was already trained but didn't have security clearance, so to prevent leaks, it was decided investigation of the artifact would be known onboard during the mission only by the ship's AI computer, which was not permitted to tell the crew until they got to their destination. I pointed out several objections to this policy, but they were overruled at a higher level so I abated. The mission was the top priority so the computer was programmed to carry out the mission autonomously in case of the crew being incapacitated.

I signed off on the orders and the mission went ahead. A year into the mission, the ship's computer malfunctioned and killed most of the crew, the last man deactivated everything and is presumed missing. I was forced to take the fall for it and resign, but neither I or any of the planners was informed the computer could go insane if it had to hide information from the crew.

So was this my fault?