Com o colapso da estrutura anterior da NASA e a natureza "fora da grade" de seu estilo de vida agrícola, parece provável que eles acabaram de perder a noção dele e assumiram que ele estava morto.
"We need a pilot. And this is the mission you were trained for.” Cooper thought back to his training. Sure as hell no one had ever mentioned anything like this to him. He’d thought Mars, maybe, or Europa at the outside. “Without ever knowing,” he said. “An hour ago, you didn’t even know I was still alive. And you were going anyway.”