Pursuits from space soccer to Martian mountaineering are already in early planning stages. “People going into space are competitive thrill-seekers,” says Allison Dollar, co-founder of the Space Tourism Conference, an annual event organized for the aerospace, design and entertainment industries by the nonprofit Space Tourism Society. “The novelty of pondering Earth from the stars will at some point wear off—it’s only natural that we evolve to have sports in space.” Stated by Former Washington Redskins linebacker Ken Harvey, here at a conference earlier this year, is developing a game for space called “Float Ball.”
The space travel and tourism market—including suborbital and orbital rides at six figures per seat, stratosphere balloon flights, simulated zero-gravity flights, and long-haul journeys—will be worth $23 billion by 2030, financial-services company UBS estimated in a 2019 report. John Spencer, founder of the Space Tourism Society, foresees outer-space yacht races with mini spaceships and lunar-buggy derbies in the decades to come. “The people investing in space right now are looking for the newest, coolest things to do,” he says. “Sports are going to be a big part of space evolution. When you look at the sponsorship money that goes into the NFL or NBA, this is a no-brainer.”
With space sports in development, real live-streamed games will follow, he predicts. Space stations could become larger and include stadiums. Or the venues may look completely different.
Ken Harvey, a former linebacker for the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) experienced weightlessness in 2008 aboard a flight with Zero Gravity Corporation, an Exploration Park, Fla.-based company that operates flights from airports in the U.S. He says his initial reaction was: “This is cool, but what do you do when you get bored?” This inspired him to devise a game that could be played in space. Called “Float Ball,” his vision combines elements of football, dodgeball and basketball and involves teams moving balls of various colors to a total of four goals at either end of the playing venue–be it a spaceship cabin or custom space arena. He’s working with Linda Rheinstein, founder of the privately funded Space Games Federation, to develop the game.
The idea of zero-gravity athletics has a long history. Astronauts strap themselves to treadmills for two-plus hours a day while in orbit to avoid bone loss due to the lack of gravity. Sports as recreation have also been attempted in less-than-serious forms. In 1971, Apollo 14 Commander Alan Shepard teed off on the surface of the Moon. In his pressurized space suit, he could only swing the golf club with one hand. Yet the slow half-swing sent the golf ball flying around 600 feet. In 2014 and 2018, astronauts and cosmonauts celebrated the FIFA World Cup by testing their soccer skills aboard the International Space Station.
Those early stunts made clear that some of the world’s most popular sports don’t translate when you remove or reduce gravity. Ms. Rheinstein. Whose career in television sports graphics earned her a place in the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, says she founded the Space Games Federation in 2014 with the aim of developing new competitive sports designed to be played in zero- or microgravity. “Right now, space is a billionaire boys club,” she says. “I hope one-day sports can democratize space, providing access for both ‘astrocytes’ and spectators.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.