SPACE SPORTS

This is most likely a long way off, but I thought that it would be awesome.
There was something going around about a space sport idea contest.
I don't care enough to enter it, but I thought it would be a cool idea to tell.

If the space hotel (funded by Hilton Hotels) becomes successful, a chamber or large room of some kind could be developed for this game.
I was thinking of something like a cross between hockey and lacross in zero-g, where velco type stuff on the walls allows players to push themselves off the walls to intercept a ball, other players that have the ball, or set up an offensive or defensive play. FULL CONTACT!!! It could be aired on ESPN for people hurling into each other in weightlessness.
This reminds me of how popular tramp-ball (or whatever it is called) was.

A prize could most likely be made out of this, but the main thing is a new space centered sport that would reach the interests of every sports fan in the world.

IMAGINE HOW MUCH MORE POPULAR SPACE TRAVEL WOULD BE!

From Space.com, an article about sports in space:

Zero-gravity Sports Contest

In space, not only will you hear screaming, but a referee’s whistle too.

Welcome to the off-planet playoffs courtesy of Gene Meyers, chief executive officer of the Space Island Group of West Covina, California. The group is putting the final touches on a novel contest involving some 40,000 public and private U.S. high schools.

It will invite the students to develop the rules for a wide range of games that could be played in a future space stadium – a huge free-floating, gravity-free cylinder in Earth orbit.

“Kids will need to go back to their math and science teachers to find out how basketball or hockey could be played without gravity,” Meyers reported at a recent Return to the Moon conference, held by the Space Frontier Foundation.

A targeted kick-off date for the contest is early October, with a mass-mailing of posters explaining how to enter the Internet-based competition for ideas. Meyers said that sponsors of the contest are being limited to sports clothing companies and manufacturers of non-carbonated, fruit drinks or bottled water.

“Teachers say that they’ve been trying for years to convert student enthusiasm in athletics into an interest in the math and science behind sports, but students have intuitively learned the physics by simply practicing the game. Removing gravity from the sport forces them back into the classroom,” Meyers told SPACE.com.

“A paragraph on the poster will outline our plan to place such an arena in orbit by 2010,” Meyers added. For years, the Space Island Group has studied use of orbiting space shuttle external tanks to offer habitable volume for a range of activities.

“In fact, we’ve had companies ask about the naming rights of the actual stadium in orbit,” Meyers said.

Space sports arenas (go read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card for information on the ultimate paintball game), space casinos, space honeymoon suites (101 More Fun Things To Do In Zero Gravity), not to mention private isolated residences for every last anti-social screwball out there........

God, the joys of libertarianism!

[edit]Fixed messed-up tag[/edit]

Sprint 100m air-swimming. (Farting and blowing permitted)
Space bowling : Throw out up to 10 cones mounted on a floating triangle.
Produce the highest centrifugal force in a free-spinning barrel.

In one of Arthur C Clarkes novels (possibly Rama) he had the idea of a large dome in a low-g environment like the moon. Competitors on ultra-lightweight pedal powered aircraft would then compete in events. Can you imagine Lance Armstrong on one going like a P-51 at a pylon race? Very cool.

Haha oh man I was just about to mention Ender's Game!
Man, that was an excellent book. I would love to play some sports like that.

In a roleplaying book I own (The Chaos Principle, Dream Pod 9) a game is played called 'exo ball'. In the game modified power armor suits (called exosuits) are used for both maneuvering and protection - but the sport itself is noncontact and non-violent.

The court is a sphere rigged with a network of handrails along its inner surface. In the middle is a goal, which rotates to face the ball at all times (so as to make scoring possible). A goal is scored by passing the ball from player to player among all the members of the team, while avoiding bodily contact and opponent interceptions. When all players on one team have held the ball, they may attempt a shot at the goal, which, if it hits gives them one point. If the opposing team intercepts the ball, they simply have the very same goal: Pass the ball between all players and then score a goal. A foul is judged when bodily contact occurs, and the ball gets passed to the team that suffered the foul.

I'm thinking this game could be quite playable even without the suits in question. Possibly equipping each player with a small cold-gas thruster to change direction in the air. The goal can be simplified to a sphere tethered in the centre of the court. Hit the goal sphere with the ball, you score.

Does anyone watch MXC (Most eXtreme elimination Challenge)? For those who don't it is a very campy Japaneese game show overdubbed by English speaking voices. The English overdubbing, in most cases has nothing to do with what the people on the show are actually saying.

Anyway, IMHO it is a heck-of-a-laugh to watch and listen. Now, just remove gravity and MXC would really be a laugh! Unfortunately they would have to change Log Drop!

Never seen or heard of it... though it does sound entertaining hehe.

there's also blitzball, the origins of which i don't remember, but people who play final fantasy 10 will know it. it's basically zero-g handball, played under water on earth to get the zero-g effect, with full contact allowed, and all parts of the body useable to hit/throw the ball. heck, you could play quiddich in space, though it would be tough to make balls act like bludgers and the snitch.

Well, small cold-gas propelled drones could perhaps work. The brooms themselves would probably use a similar system. The quaffle (sp?) would be just an inert ball... Though as far as I know it needs to be under gravity control? But the injuries... Oh the injuries...

heh, you could give the bludger a motion sensor and gas jets, that would probably work, but the snitch would require some sort of randomized flight path.

blitzball and quidditch... those two i am much more familiar with gotta love FFX... actually, you gotta just love all the FF games hehe. And who doesnt know bout Mr. Potter??

despite the coolness of blitzball and quiddich, i have to say that the ender's game laser tag (that didn't have a name, did it?) discussed previously takes prize for absolute coolest zero-g sport ever imagined. especially with the whole tournament system in place. zero-g ping pong, zero-g racketball, and zero-g wrestling also would be very cool though.