This is just an attempt to establish more of a backstory for Aperture Science. More may follow.
March 5th, 1956
Cave Johnson stood at the side of the room observing the Olympian shooting Rings at the wall. This may sound like crazy talk to anyone else, but to Cave Johnson, this was Science. A few years ago, Cave had expanded his company, Aperture Science Innovators, to a new testing facility in Upper Michigan, on the site of a former salt mine. As a result, they had miles of space to play around with, vertically at least. And they had been putting this to the test, with various testing rooms for various experiments. But the one experiment that was tested more than any other was the Aperture Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device. The blueprints for this "Portal Gun" were drawn up shortly after the Salt Mine was purchased, over three years ago. Since then, the experiment has resulted in at least 50 missing Olympians, Astronauts and War Heroes. While the contract they signed covered Aperture in the event that they went missing, there was a lot of questions starting to be asked, especially by the wives of these missing men, who are still waiting for them to come home for a dinner served three years ago.
"Alright now, Chip, just run through one of these two portals, and you should come out the other side 100% intact. Well, 99% maybe. You might loose a nerve or four along the way, but that's just a minor side effect." They were standing in a simple room: four walls; a floor; and a roof. The only major difference was that everything was made of a special material designed to support the use of portals. Chip ran to the portal closest to him, which had a glowing orange border. Chip ran through the hole in the wall, and didn't come through the other end. "Another failure, that makes 59." said one of the three Scientists watching the experiment. Cave speaks up. "There is an Olympic Games later this year, and at this rate there will be no one competing under Ol' Glory! Tell the rest of the Lab Boys to fix this damn Portal Gun or they're fired." he said before walking out the Door, ironically labelled 'Entry'. It wasn't the first time that the experiment failed, and it was nowhere near the last.