whether humans should continue to exist on Earth once came down to the vote of one guy it's been called the most dangerous moment in human history and we didn't even know it happened until 40 years later October 27th 1962 11 days into the Cuban Missile Crisis the US Navy discovers Soviet submarine b59 deep underwater to scare it up they drop depth charges the submarine's crew notices these explosions but they don't know what's going on one possibility was that fears of a global nuclear exchange have finally come true and if so they should launch their own nuclear weapons to join in but that's the problem right what if there isn't a nuclear war happening above us uh well you know then launching our weapons could start one and not just a little one a nuclear exchange powerful enough to annihilate at least the entire northern hemisphere of Earth however B5 9 is so deep they have lost all radio contact with Moscow or the rest of the world that doesn't mean they couldn't launch a nuclear weapon in a case like that protocol required a unanimous vote from the three highest ranking people on the ship the ship's Captain Valentine savitzky was convinced they should do it and the ship's political officer agreed the pivotal third vote came down to second in command Vil arapov arapov hesitated and eventually said no let's not do it instead of running out of air they surfaced and exposed themselves to the US Navy and they were sent home to Moscow they were received in shame there was a feeling at the time that they should have gone down with their ship instead of surrendering arapov lived until 1998 4 years after his death a fellow crew member that day finally told the story of what happened our species was spared because one guy voted no in 2017 arapov was postumus given the future of Life award a rare honor given to those who at risk to themselves Safeguard the future of life on Earth