The Future of Space Sports

Loether writes "Space.com has a fun article about how astronauts aboard the ISS play 'sports' in zero gravity. It talks about learning how to throw in a straight line instead of the arc we all take for granted, relay races, and using large water filled bags as medicine balls. 'We realized that you could toss and catch and then go for a ride on this big thing as it takes you away.' The astronauts also put out a request for new ideas for space sports. Have any suggestions?"

Comments

Run around the tanks?

[Pig Hogger]

Jogging around the water tanks à la Skylab maybe?

Flying

[David Frankenstein]

I read it somewhere one time. Give me some wings and Zero-G, and I can use them to 'swim' if I can push enough air around. Would be even more fun with Small-G.

Pissing contest

[Anonymous Coward]

A 0-G pissing contest might prove interesting.

new olympic sport

[purpleque]

speedfloating...neither foot can touch the ground during the entire race.

Flying.

[geekoid]

Don't confuse Activity, competitions and sports. Sorry, I needed to gt that off my chest.

Any ways..
Gymnastics would be very interesting, as would wrestling.

I suspect someone would create 'wings' that strap onto your arms to help you 'swim' around. That could be an interesting race.

Re:Clever "Dept."

[Ironsides]

Speaking of which. If they want Zero G and low G sports, I suggest reading through the Science Fiction section a bit. The Enders Game battles were some of the first to pop into my mind. Then there are the human butterfly (strap wings to yourself and fly) sports on the moon from "This place has no atmosphere". There was one in the Tom Swift series that started with "The City in the Stars". I'll have to reread it to check what it was about. Some form of low G basketball if I remember right. There was another series that had a sport where you tried to get around the (quite large) station as fast as you could. You used tow ropes to pull yourself along by realing in your line by hand. A relay/sprint in zero G if you will.

Re:Aloft?

[bostongraf]

And can it be considered a world record if it takes place outside of Earth's atmosphere?

Two man juggling

[myxiplx]

Well you can't very well juggle on your own in space, and I doubt Nasa would appreciate you bouncing balls off all the equipment, but you could probably learn to juggle 5 balls between two people.

Of course the trick is to work out a path where the balls won't collide, and to learn the direction to throw them in, but it'd make for a great publicity video if they worked it out :D

Re:It's all fun and games...

[snowraver1]

I was thinking the same thing. I, personally, would not be playing with a water balloon near my life support system... But, that's just me.

Magnetic Obstacle Course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am thinking a small metal sphere and magnets at various angles and distances to alter the path of the sphere in such a way that you could set up a series of hoops that you had to go through. And when that gets boring there is always Super Happy Fun Ball: http://terry.kovax.org/2005/03/super_happy_fun_ball.html

Re:Clever "Dept."

[smellsofbikes]

I was thinking the same thing -- the carbon dioxide thruster games that Asimov wrote about in the Lucky Starr games, where you have a single big CO2 pressure tank with a nozzle you can aim, and your goal is to maneuver in a cubic mile of space and knock your opponent through a set of goalposts, or the (in)famous Dr. Who episode where he was stuck in space and threw a cricket ball at something, bounced it off, caught it, and knocked himself to safety. (Which they did WRONG since he would've received 1 chunk of push from throwing it, and a second from catching it again, and they only showed the second part. Lame.) Or, another Dr. Who sport: solar racing, using sails. (again, implementation lame, since they looked like ships complete with hulls and there's no way to tack, but there was a cool idea buried down in there somewhere.)

Re:basketball

[Sciros]

professional athletes Depends on the sport. Hockey is predominately white, though that's largely due to regional culture (that goes for "winter sports" in general, I guess). Soccer seems to not favor the athletic tendencies of any particular race. Tiger Woods is like 100 races in one so golf's a wash. In Baseball, American Football, and Basketball there are many black athletes but it's not necessarily because of their physical advantages. Certainly the greater muscle mass, height, and high vertical jump mean a lot, especially for particular positions in football and basketball. But if you look at the MVPs in both sports lately, as well as how the US has fared in international competition (in Basketball, at least), physical ability isn't the only factor that determines performance. The fact that it's important to play intelligently above all else serves as something of an equalizer. Certainly when you mix playing smarts with uncanny physical talent, as we see in players like LeBron James, you can see that perhaps the "theoretically best" (for basketball, at least) player would be black for the sake of natural physical form/ability, but that theory isn't very useful in reality.

And if you look at trends, the NBA for instance is becoming much more international in terms of its player makeup. More players are coming from South America, Europe, and China than ever before, and I expect that to continue.

Re:basketball

[bennomatic]

You're totally right on. There was a time that a significant portion of pro basketball players were Jewish, too. Was it because of cultural or economic reasons? No, of course not. Sports pundits of the time indicated that shorter men would be better at basketball because they would have greater balance and agility... A quick Google search on "jews in basketball" reveals that and other interesting statements.

Throwing in a straight line, and other tricks

[RabidMonkey]

It's amazing how, even as a wee child, we learn to account for gravity in everything we do. (I know that it's an obvious statement, but ponder it). We learn to throw in arcs, we learn how things bounce, based on their elasticity or density, we learn how to throw higher/lighter, lower/harder to do different arcs, we learn how to throw things that are light vs heavy ...

then, to have to relearn that in space. It would be an interesting study in learning and adapting to see how people learn this, then, when they return back to Gravity, how they re-adjust.

Ultimate (Frisbee)

[HeyBob!]

I'm surprised no one's brought up Ultimate (Frisbee)
A spinning disc has lift so th throw it to some one, you'd throw it down and it would rise to them!