The year is 2065, four years since the dawn of the glorious Moon Age. Technology had advanced significantly in this short time period, starting at fuel-devouring, steel monoliths called space shuttles to the sleek, titanium-infused Moon Landers. These Landers were extremely luxurious, and could whisk tourists from Earth to the moon in the time it took for an airplane to travel across the U.S., forty years ago.

Even with all this luxury amiss his surroundings, Mike was not tempted at all to take a mon vacation - he was going in with a purpose. Being an accomplished astronaut, Mike Burns had successfully carried ten missions on the moon, Mars, and the asteroids. But even all that experience could not prepare him for what lay ahead.

Mike could never tire of the feeling of freedom and ultimate power of zero gravity. One was not limited by some theoretical force and could move in any direction - up,up,up,up,up,up, or even up! Mike decided to enjoy it while it lasted- he would not return to space for however long the mission turned out to be. In fact, he did not even know what he was supposed to do.

He found out soon enough. Upon landing at Moon Base One, Mike was immediately whisked to a private office, where several high-ranking officials waited, with grim expressions. Second Officer Rose Auburn spoke first. “We knew this would happen eventually...” she started to say.
“What? Is something wrong?” asked Mike, right before realizing how stupid the question was. He cringed with embarrassment. “Never mind” he said in a small voice. Rose acted as if she hadn’t heard. And maybe she actually hadn’t. “It’s an asteroid,” Rose told him. “It’s due to intercept the moon’s orbit in four days. The results could be catastrophic.” Mike thought about the twenty thousand-odd people residing in or near the moon base. “Why wouldn’t explosives work?” he asked. High-power nuclear explosives were commonly used to prevent asteroids from reaching anywhere close to home.
“Obviously, they didn’t work, or else we wouldn’t have called you.” said Rose, warily. Mike was speechless. Only a HUGE asteroid, over a billion kilograms massive, would be too much for nukes to handle. Luckily, he knew a solution- something commonly used in the past, before common explosives were powerful enough. He consulted the lead technician, Robert Michaels. “A possibility, one that has not been used for over forty years, has become necessary, in my opinion,” Mike told him. “It is notorious for having an extremely low success rate of 60%.” (Comparatively, nuclear explosives held a long-standing high success rate, with 98%.)  “Well, everything else seems to be out of the question,” Robert finally stated. “We haven’t even thought of this method, due to the unpredictability, but it just might have to do.”

A few hours later, Mike found himself squeezed into the controls of an old cargo craft, the only thing the crew could salvage at the moment, with dozens of scientists and engineers working on the job. He could barely maneuver anywhere, and it was sluggish compared to the new models. Mike glanced at the locator, now showing a miniscule speck of grey, fifty million kilometers away. He swallowed hard, and got himself to start the countdown. “Five...Four...Three...Two...One……….” an electronic voice said. In his mind, Mike felt the last second stretch on for minutes as he braced for liftoff. Finally, it came. “LIFTOFF!!!!!” However, the spectacular explosions and fireworks associated with rockets were nonexistent- they just weren’t necessary on the low gravity and lack of atmosphere on the moon. Mike accelerated up and away, as he watched the moon and Earth grow smaller and smaller… until they were no more distinguishable than a large star.

After several hours of light napping, Mike awoke to a message from the Moon. “Hi Mike.” It was Rose’s voice. “Hope you had a safe journey so far. I would like to alert you of something...alarming.”
Mike was fully awake now, imagining possible situations with what imagination he had left. Could the asteroid have passed him already? Was he going the wrong way? I hope it’s not anything serious, he thought.

It turns out that he jinxed himself. Such an old word, jinx. I don’t even know how I remember it, he thought. Rose’s voice had come in again. “There’s something approaching you, very quickly. And it isn’t the asteroid.” Mike looked around, confused. There was nothing to be seen. “Black hole.” he instantly said. “Black hole!” he repeated, louder and more urgent. Rose was there to reassure him. “No, silly, you probably aren’t fully awake yet. You’re still inside the Solar System; how could a black hole possibly be….. never mind.” By now, Mike had already turned the spacecraft around and had started the emergency boosters up. “I think I’ll be fine,” he said to the Moon. “I’m extremely far away, so far from it that the detection system doesn’t see anything unusual.” He breathed a loud sigh of relief. He had escaped, and was headed back towards the moon.

Caught up in all the excitement and danger, everyone had overlooked one thing that may or may not have been important- the asteroid. The entire three hours of Mike’s trip home, he and the crew were busy obsessing over one question: “What was that?” The initial black hole scare had been eliminated fairly quickly, as it would be completely illogical for a black hole to suddenly appear out of nowhere, close enough to pose a threat. However, it still had a massive gravitational pull and was invisible to all equipment- which was unique as of now to black holes. The crew, accompanied by Mike for the occasional comment, discussed this deeply and intently- but that’s too much detail for now. What was important was what happened to the abandoned mission.

When the task was recovered, everyone scoured the screens for the asteroid. But it seemed that it simply disappeared- vanished from all detection. Everyone agreed that the mysterious “Black Hole Thing” (as it was affectionately coined) was responsible. “Well, look on the bright side,” Rose told everyone, “we don’t have to worry about it anymore. As far as I’m concerned, it no longer exists.”
“But what about the Black Hole Thing?” countered pretty much everyone else. “It could pose an even larger threat that is unknown amongst us.” This lively conversation (*cough* *cough* argument) was also too technical to transcribe. So I will just leave it be. Bottom line: just leave it be until it turns from being passive-aggressive into aggressive-aggressive, and we will all be fine.
To this day, no one knows what the Black Hole Thing is or was, and this still remains a controversial topic addressed by countless astronomers and theorists.

   -This account processed on:
18 July 2081, 21:18 EST [Earth Standard Time].
Have a good day.-