11th June 2012, 2:27 PM
I think the movie amounts less to a mission led by a couple of nutjobs and more to an old man's last gasp [an old man who happens to be incredibly rich and incredibly powerful]. The idea is that he's poured everything into living as long as possible, but it's still not good enough. The mission is basically his last chance to be immortal, by being the first human to make contact with an alien race [the same alien race that was responsible for creating humans in the first place]. Remember that Vickers made it clear that the two scientists were to have no contact with the aliens, they were only to report back what they'd found.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.