You are an astronaut, strapping in for your first transport between galaxies. The black holes sitting at the center of most galaxies have been used for travel from one quadrant of the universe to the other for centuries now, but in minutes you will become the first human ever to enter the tunnel system at the entrance in the middle of the Milky Way and emerge on the other side.

Since no earthling has ever done this before, no one is really totally sure where exactly your ship will arrive when it exits the intergalactic transport system (ITS, as it has become known on Earth), but scientists on Earth assure you that you will in fact emerge safely out of one of the tubes connecting our galaxy to the others that are part of the system. You have been travelling through space for more than three years, dodging stars and space rocks in your tiny ship at several times the speed of light toward the center of the Milky Way, and have finally stationed on Koveno, a tiny, dry planet base just outside the gravitational pull of Quasar Alpha, the black hole right at the galactic center which marks the local entrance into the ITS. Just a couple of seconds from now, you will push off from Koveno and soon be locked into the pull of Quasar Alpha, leaving your home galaxy and this entire quadrant of the universe, maybe forever. Although in theory you should be able to return to the Milky Way via the ITS, there is no telling if or when that would ever happen. You have prepared for this for most of your adult life, trained for it, and at this point, you are eager to get out and explore the unknown on behalf of all humankind.

This is it! 10-9-8 counts down the automatic launch timer, and in moments you are off. Although the crush of liftoff on your body is expected and something you are quite used to after hundreds of launches in your time as an astronaut, you are not prepared for the immediacy or the strength with which Quasar Alpha locks onto your ship and drags you in her at increasing speeds. Before you know it, all you can see is a rainbow of colors out the cockpit of your ship as you plunge into the depths of the black hole, spinning ever faster and faster until everything is a whirlwind of color and no colors, black and white, nothing and everything.

Nothing you do, no buttons you push on the bridge control panel, are of any effect, and your sensors quickly indicate that your ship is in danger of overheating and breaking apart from the intense gravitational pull. The main alarm sounds shrilly, and you can see sparks dancing outside the cockpit as the ship's hull begins to give way. You might be able to abort the mission and turn around now by activating the emergency retro thrusters, but in truth you may very well be too far into the Quasar Alpha's grasp that there is no escape at this point. Either way, you need to make a decision fast, as your ship appears very close to complete disintegration.

Do you activate the retro thrusters and see if you can save the ship?

OR

Do you sit tight and full speed ahead into Quasar Alpha?