I was part of an eight-person manned mission to Mars, and when we returned, as per plan our spacecraft splashed down in a lake in a relatively remote part of the US. However, the external ballon/raft like things that were supposed to inflate to provide buoyancy did not deploy, and the spacecraft sank to the bottom of the lake, about three hundred feet down. (Apparently the spacecraft must have been extremely heavy for its size, or the internal atmosphere would have kept it afloat.)  Worse yet, the NASA recovery team had not yet arrived on the scene, and being deep underwater, we did not have radio contact.

After a few hours we were running out of oxygen, so we decided that we had to blow the hatch and swim to the surface. Only six of us survived. We weren’t able to bring anything remotely like survival gear up from the spacecraft, but fortunately the weather was warm and dry. We set off hiking in the direction of a nearby small town.

We ended up at a small convenience store in the town. The proprietor recognized us, and was astounded that we were in his store. He called a reporter from the local newspaper, who interviewed us and put out a story on the news wire. We had some rather uncomplimentary things to say about NASA.

The NASA recovery team finally showed up in some amazing behemoth of an amphibious vehicle.  They didn’t have any good explanation as to why they were so late, but the NASA management was extremely pissed off at us for giving interviews, and we were told that we would be suspended without pay pending an investigation.