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Aperture's financial problems were severe at this time, but development continued. In the 1980s, test participation became mandatory for all staff, raising the quality of the test subjects, but diminishing employee retention. Aperture Science would continue its research and created Propulsion Gel. The Olympians, astronauts and war heroes that were used as test subjects were replaced with vagrants who were paid $60 for their time. In 1968, Cave Johnson attending court hearings regarding Aperture Science's involvement with the disappearances of astronauts, likely due to many of them not returning from testing.īy the 1970s, Aperture Science was financially unstable. Aperture's developments in this period included Repulsion Gel, the Weighted Storage Cube, the 1500 Megawatt Super Colliding Super Button and the Aperture Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device, an early and significantly larger version of the modern Portal Gun. They were also the second largest contractor after Black Mesa for the Department of Defense from 1952 to 1954. The best possible test subjects, the likes of Olympians, astronauts and war heroes were first chosen. All of this was not done legally, going by the posters telling workers to alarm if they were to see any sort of journalist, police or workplace controlant. Throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s, Aperture Science would begin its comprehensive testing and research practices. Cave Johnson purchased a large, abandoned salt mine in Upper Michigan in which Aperture Science's Enrichment Center would be built however, there was at least one alternate location in Cleveland, Ohio. While this was initially done to make their shower curtains sound more hygienic, the company's focus would indeed soon shift to actual science.
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In 1943 the company's name was changed to "Aperture Science Innovators". Aperture Fixtures was primarily dedicated to the manufacture and distribution of shower curtains – a low-tech portal between the inside and outside of a shower – with Cave Johnson winning the "Shower Curtain Salesman of 1943" award. Newspaper reporting the purchase of the salt mineĪperture Science was founded as Aperture Fixtures in the early 1940s by Cave Johnson.
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