NASA scientists acquire materials from asteroids which turns out to be gold but instead of studying it to determine the origins of the universe; they're actually secretly selling it on the black market so they can retire early and live a lavish lifestyle.
If you could get enough gold from asteroids back to Earth to be able to secret it away and sell it without anyone noticing samples going missing, it would imply that so much is coming back that the gold market would tank, anyway.<p>Everything we've brought back from the moon without a human hand carrying it there - which is nearby, in a predictable orbit, and is moderately easy to get to compared to everything else - weighs under five pounds. That's less than what a gallon of milk weighs.<p>Asteroid samples brought back to earth so far weigh considerably less.
One of the NASA scientists, secretly has developed a teleporter device. But unbeknownst to him, during trial runs of embezzling gold from the asteroid surface, the gold is transmuted in such a way that it 100% converts to lead, after 60 days of being teleported. Hyjinx ensue.
I miss the action. Just like: NASA scientists start to kill each other because of the gold. The last one survives, spends it at the local casino and die a slow death of sorrows.