So, just wanted to see what the community speculates about whatever this Cave Johnson line in Portal 2 is alluding to: "Greetings, friend. I'm Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture Science - you might know us as a vital participant in the 1968 Senate Hearings on missing astronauts." What was Aperture's role in the hearing? Did Black Mesa also participate? What exactly happened up there?
My thought is, Aperture ran some huge problematic test that involved the deaths of a ton of astronauts, and then the government started to wonder where some of NASA's finest had went, and so they started investigating Aperture, but then they tried to cover it up, and that led to the senate hearings we hear about.
Seems plausible. And could be a part of the reason they were losing money around the time of the recording. Though it brings into question why he would mention that, but also he's Cave Johnson so it's also pretty in-line with the character.
Edit: I also imagined Cave Johnson choosing to represent Aperture in the hearings and that would have been quite a spectacle.
moon rocks happened