Is this a good idea? New pro sports in outer space?

April 18, 2011

I was lying on the couch this afternoon with my laptop, trying simultaneously to write a blog while watching an NBA game between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat, when I had thought. Are professional sports as we know them going to exist 50 years from now? What are the new sports of the future going to be like?

I glanced over my shoulder at my 11-year-old son, Minh, who was staring at his computer, engrossed in a game of Half Life. It occurred to me that he's never shown the slightest interest in watching any televised athletic event and probably couldn't name a single NBA, NFL, NHL or MLB player, professional boxer, or NASCAR driver, even if I offered him this rocket-propelled chainsaw or some other suitably cool destructive gadget that would appeal to his pre-adolescent male sensibilities. Most of his elementary-school friends seem similarly apathetic about the big league sports that I and my peers were obsessed with at his age back in the 1960s.  "They're boring," my son explained to me in his usual laconic manner, in between shooting zombies and laughing as their heads fall off. "They take too long. Nothing really good happens."

It might seem shocking to the couch potatoes of my generation that someday, LeBron James or Tiger Woods may be as forgotten as Mensen Ernst. While that last name probably doesn't ring a bell, it's insightful to consider that in 1832, Ernst was one of the most famous athletes on the planet, a professional ultra-distance runner who made his living taking wagers on whether he could run from, say, Paris to Moscow in two weeks. Ernst actually accomplished that feat in 1832, earning 100,000 francs for his efforts. (Here's an 1843 magazine article on the eccentric runner, who carried a sextant and compass with him and spoke an odd lingo comprised of words from languages of the various countries he had run across.) And remember that a century ago, boxing and horse racing were two of the most widely followed sports in America. Today, both struggle just to survive.

I think it's totally conceivable that our present major-league professional sports could easily suffer the same fate. Basketball, for example, was invented in the late 19th century, and since then has undergone a series of radical changes in rules and equipment, to the point that it might be virtually unrecognizable to Dr. James Naismith, the gym teacher who invented it. Pro football has reached an even more precarious state of development, with collisions becoming so violent and destructive that some ex-players are being diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition whose effects mimic those of Lou Gehrig's disease. NASCAR still seems to be growing in popularity, but the technology upon which it is based -- the internal combustion engine -- may well vanish in the next 25 years, when we run out of fossil-based fuel.

With some effort, I coaxed my son into envisioning the yet-to-be-invented team sport of the future that would interest him.

1. The pace of the competition would be a lot faster than basketball or even hockey.
2. There would be special effects. In particular, stuff would blow up, spectacularly.
3. The equipment would include a lot of high-tech gadgets. The more complicated and outlandish, the better.
4. It would be totally undignified, with athletes compelled to attempt bizarre, outlandish or even ridiculous feats of skill. "People would fail all the time," he emphasizes.
5. The games would be played in space.

That last part particularly intrigues me. As this 2008 USA Today article details, astronauts already have experimented with orbital versions of their favorite terrestrial athletic pastimes, from hitting golf balls and throwing a Frisbee to marathon running. Here's a YouTube video crew members on the International Space Station, demonstrating weightless orbital baseball and soccer.

If they're going to play for fun, why not have them turn pro and do it for money? Beyond that, combining space exploration and professional sports might be a great way to ease the finances of government space agencies. NASA, for example, might be more economically viable if it were to become NASSA, the National Aeronautics, Space and Sports Administration.

The events could be staged in an orbital arena like this one, which was designed back in 2000 by scientists at Japanese universities. The researchers envision combining a small stadium with a space hotel for spectators, who would fly to events on commercial spacelines such as Virgin Galactic. I could also imagine the space stadium doubling as a telecom satellite and beaming videocasts of the events to Earth.


Visionaries already have dreamed up some future sports that might be staged in space. Basketball, for example, might morph into a sport resembling rocketball, a game originally developed for the TV series American Gladiators, in which competitors are shot into the air and try to throw a ball into a basket in the rafters of the arena, while equally airborne opponents try to defend. There's also Blernsball, the mashup of baseball, tetherball and pinball dreamed up by the writers of the animated TV series Futurama, in which base runners occasionally get to ride on motorcycles.

Another option might be a less lethal version of rollerball, the game dreamed up by author Jim Harrison and depicted in a dystopian 1975 film starring James Caan. (There also was a regrettable 2002 sequel, but enough said about that.)

In a 2010 ESPN: The Magazine article (which unfortunately, doesn't seem to be available online), some CalTech students dreamed up another intriguing possibility: Pwnage, a sort of cross between laser tag and dodgeball, in which "competitors hunt each other while wielding enormous air cannons capable of firing powder-filled projectiles." I might suggest replacing the projectiles with some sort of holographic simulated explosion, which would be less messy and more spectacular.

So what do you think? Are space sports in our future? What ideas do you have for new futuristic athletic contests? Post your suggestions below.

Image Credits: VICTOR HABBICK VISIONS/Science Photo Library/Corbis/iStockphoto/Thinkstock | Jon Feingersh/Getty Images | Colin Anderson/Getty Images |