MMM Classics Year 10: MMM #s 91-100 - Moon Society

One such facility per zero-G venue is all there is likely to be, if
even one! A successful working design easy to erect and maintain
is likely to become an instant standard.
Types of indoor zero-G events we can foresee are
isometric competition, wrestling, boxing, and other actionreaction
ruled events. Air-swimming and air-dancing and
gymnastics should prove tele-spectator favorites. versions of
handball, ping pong or tennis, Jai Alai analogs allowing play
off of all surfaces, even basketball without the running and
dribbling. Limited volume may mean rallies (clock mediated
competition) or multiple heats.
In a spherical volume, some sort of triaxial reactor
like those used by training astronauts should support some
fantastic gymnastic routines. Additional reader-developed and
illustrated suggestions are most welcome.
Zero-G Olympic events will surely include some
“EVA” [extra vehicular activity] type events in space suits or
pods. The challenge will be to ensure both the safety of the
contestants and competitors and minimize the risk of body and
equipment impact damage to the host structure perhaps with
nets of some sort or other types of sufficient shield.
A backpack slalom, a hand-grip or hand rail race or
rally, muscle powered rail-gripping cart-cycles or dollies, and
various sorts of gyroscopically counter-rotating hand wheel
devices are imaginable.
Solar sailing is a much prophesied Olympic level
competition possibility. But the sail apparatus would have to be
weight- and/or size-fixed for Olympic competition purposes,
not so for America’s Cup type ever-evolving yachting type
competition.
Olympic Events on the Moon
Back to gravity, gravity with a difference. All else
being equal, people will jump and balls will bounce slower and
higher. It will be harder to accelerate and maneuver. Momentum
will be Earth-normal as it is independent of gravity.
Traction, however, is largely gravity dependent, and will be
proportionately reduced, putting a great strain on ankles.
Potential rebound-assisting surfaces like walls, even ceilings,
may become as import as floors in the play of many sports as
well as in gymnastics. Highly banked courts or zones may be
common. Because momentum is unchanged while weight is cut
to a sixth, carelessness by novices and newcomers is likely to
result in an epidemic of impact-related sports injuries.
Early sports facilities may utilize spherical, cylindrical,
and toroidal rigid-inflatables hybrid structures similar to
those that may become the norm in zero-G locations. However,
the early availability of building materials manufactured on site
and development of architectures and construction methods
appropriate to them may bring down the cost of pressurized
sports volume appreciably. This should allow the reemergence
of substantial spectator gallery areas and rectangular courts, as
well as development of sports and field and track events that
require more space for satisfactory play and/or execution.
On the Moon, then, we are likely to see a renewed
round of experimentation with the development of second
generation Olympic events as the reduced cost of volume, and
greater variety of arena configuration becomes a possibility
Yet field size combined with a scale-up owing to the
six-fold reduced gravity militates against any attempts to
“translate” or transpose close caricatures of our baseball,
football (either), golf, etc. and other field-intensive sports.
Standardization of smaller multipurpose arenas will
encourage the earlier spread of additional similar facilities in
new lunar towns and settlements and outposts. This means
increased completion and faster maturation of the sport or
event, and an earlier rise of play to respectably Olympic levels.
And that, after all, is our goal.
In sixthweight, indoor cycling is likely. Handball,
wall-tennis and Jai Alai analogs are likely. Lunar gymnastics
will have to substitute momentum-rebound for gravity to keep
the pace of routines less than dreamfully slow. Floors, walls,
ceilings and hand rings or rungs everywhere will be part of the
action. The risk of momentum impact injury will be a quick
teacher, or triage master.
Surface sports out on the desolate moonscapes? Of
course. Out-vac events may involve unsuited contestants in
pressurized vehicles, but more likely suited competitors on foot
or in open-vac human-powered vehicles (cycles, squirrel cages,
or American Gladiator style Atlas balls scoring points by
rolling into a succession of variably sized craterlets, for
example. Pogo stick events? Why not, especially on the Moon!
Some familiar field and track analogs are more likely
to be practiced in a suit out on the surface than indoors simply
because of the room needed: the javelin, shot put, discus,
maybe even the pole vault. Suited surface races may include
hurdles and steeplechase type events, perhaps cross-country
marathons. One thing not to forget is the dependence of suited
contestants on efficient handling of perspiration and heat by
their suits. This dependence may insert a level of erratic
apparatus-driven variability that may be unsuitable for
Olympics sanctioned events. It would seem that indoor games
and events which more reliably measure the perfor-mance of
the individual independent of apparatus will be quicker to be
elevated to Olympic status.
Artificial Gravity Venues
Artificial gravity outside centrifuge cages, is something
yet to escape the financial prison of paper studies. It
would seem that NASA never heard of Von Braun or never say
2001. Artificial gravity comes courtesy of a set of engineering
challenges that NASA has lacked either the confidence or the
determination to tackle. When that situation will change is
anybody’s guess. Even in speculative planning of a human
Mars expedition, NASA seems determined to send its crew in a
zero-G environment guaranteeing that after many months of
free-fall coast they will arrive on the scene much to weak to do
anything useful. Baby step experimentation with tether induced
rotation, for example between a pair of shuttles, between a
shuttle and Mir, between a shuttle and a station habitat prior to
delivery, are so simple in concept that the refusal to attempt
them invites contempt. Nonetheless the day will come.
Rotating environments can provide a range of baseline
G values from 1 (Earth standard), 3/8ths (Mars standard), 1/6th
(lunar standard), with end cap and ramp ranges everywhere in
between on down to coaxial micro-gravity levels. We are likely
in time to see a number of rotating habitats at each of these
gravity levels.
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 77