Ishmael Beah

Andromeda Strain:
Ashanti Floyd

In the opening incident of the movie “Andromeda Strain,” a space probe sent into the upper atmosphere of earth crashes unexpectedly in a remote area of Arizona. The probe was sent up to determine if there were any organisms capable of survival in space. When the probe landed, two men from the Military were sent down to survey the area and obtain the probe. They found the town that it had landed in was in chaos. There were bodies everywhere. Upon driving into the town, they immediately died. It was immediately clear that the deaths of the population of this town and the space probe’s crash were not coincidental. A committee had been formed 5 years prior to the incident to determine what would be done in a situation such as this one. If the organism could not be identified and neutralized, a nuclear bomb would be detonated on the site. Clearly, the probe had brought something back from space. A team was assembled to determine exactly what that was.
The team consisted of 5 people from various fields of science. Most had forgotten The Wildfire Project. They were gathered from their homes throughout the country and flown to Arizona. The team consisted of 5 people. It was thought that these people, when working together, could quickly discover the nature of the organism and make a decision as to what would be done in destroying it.
The use of the nuclear device which the team was considering involved a very serious decision. In order to give civilians the power to detonate such a device, the odd man hypothesis was created. It stated that one of the members of the team be single, and that it would be his responsibility to make the nuclear decision. He was to be given a key that would only work for him. If a leak was detected in the examination facility, it would be up to him to stop the detonation. The odd man of the team was Mark Hall. This played a key factor in the climax.
The team was taken to the site of the landing. Upon... [continues]

Read full essay