Extreme Sports! and Extremely silly ones too!

[tshiggins]

The one that springs immediately to mind, for me, would be winged flight, using one's own upper-body strength.

I'd say this one originated on Luna, since any gravity heavier than that makes it impossible. Human beings strap wing on their arms and, with no mechanical assistance, must see how high they can fly and/or remain aloft. It's a test of strength and endurance, with equipment failure resulting in a potentially long fall.

The sport originated in a tall recreational area on a moon base, designed to provide psychological relief for the normally cramped conditions found in most bases. A 15 meter tall chamber was created out of a lava-bubble, with tiered gardens up the sides and a bright blue "sky" displayed on a fake video "skylight" overhead.

At some point, an engineer who had been cooped up for awhile decided to fabricate some wings out of aluminum and hemp canvas (hemp being a primary source of all sorts of useful substances, including fibers), and see if he could up to the top tier of gardens, starting at the floor.

A fairly strong guy, he worked at it for several months, finally succeeding on his 11th try. Someone made a video of a number of his attempts (and the sometimes comical failures), and released them upon completion.

The vid went viral, and the intrepid engineer moved from a "psych watch" list to a serious bonus-earner, as suddenly people in other habitats with similar facilities tried to give it a try.

Now, affluent lunar colonies have at least one funnel-shaped "wing gym," created out of a suitable bubble, or even (in a couple of tourist destinations) carved out of solid rock. Only the hard-core athletes start at the floor in still air, though. For more casual hobbyists, the various tiers offer "perches" from which they can launch out into the open air.

The gyms aren't just touristy overhead, either. In an effort to maximize utility, most of the garden tiers are thickly planted with vegetation designed to maximize CO2 intake while producing useful goods. They also feature secluded nooks, or even cafes where locals and visitors can meet and greet, and watch the flyers.

Because the colonies have integrated the gyms the life-support system, they'll frequently have blowers that bring in air from the other parts of the base, mounted in the floors, directly, as well as at various points around the gym.

This creates updrafts and cross-breezes the fliers can, and do, use for aerobatics of all sorts, and every gym is a little bit different from every other.

Visitors who decide to give it a try must sign waivers of lawsuits related to personal injury. Winged flight requires considerable stamina and a fair amount of upper-body strength. While safety officers do exist, busy tourist hubs see an accident about once a month, or so. Usually, an overenthusiastic amateur launches from a high perch, makes it out to the middle of the open air, runs out of stamina, and panics.

Even at 0.166 of Earth's gravity (1.62519 m/s^2), a fall from 20 meters can hurt someone, especially if they land badly.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The one that springs immediately to mind, for me, would be winged flight, using one's own upper-body strength.

I'd say this one originated on Luna, since any gravity heavier than that makes it impossible. Human beings strap wing on their arms and, with no mechanical assistance, must see how high they can fly and/or remain aloft. It's a test of strength and endurance, with equipment failure resulting in a potentially long fall.

The sport originated in a tall recreational area on a moon base, designed to provide psychological relief for the normally cramped conditions found in most bases. A 15 meter tall chamber was created out of a lava-bubble, with tiered gardens up the sides and a bright blue "sky" displayed on a fake video "skylight" overhead.

At some point, an engineer who had been cooped up for awhile decided to fabricate some wings out of aluminum and hemp canvas (hemp being a primary source of all sorts of useful substances, including fibers), and see if he could up to the top tier of gardens, starting at the floor.

A fairly strong guy, he worked at it for several months, finally succeeding on his 11th try. Someone made a video of a number of his attempts (and the sometimes comical failures), and released them upon completion.

The vid went viral, and the intrepid engineer moved from a "psych watch" list to a serious bonus-earner, as suddenly people in other habitats with similar facilities tried to give it a try.

Now, affluent lunar colonies have at least one funnel-shaped "wing gym," created out of a suitable bubble, or even (in a couple of tourist destinations) carved out of solid rock. Only the hard-core athletes start at the floor in still air, though. For more casual hobbyists, the various tiers offer "perches" from which they can launch out into the open air.

The gyms aren't just touristy overhead, either. In an effort to maximize utility, most of the garden tiers are thickly planted with vegetation designed to maximize CO2 intake while producing useful goods. They also feature secluded nooks, or even cafes where locals and visitors can meet and greet, and watch the flyers.

Because the colonies have integrated the gyms the life-support system, they'll frequently have blowers that bring in air from the other parts of the base, mounted in the floors, directly, as well as at various points around the gym.

This creates updrafts and cross-breezes the fliers can, and do, use for aerobatics of all sorts, and every gym is a little bit different from every other.

Visitors who decide to give it a try must sign waivers of lawsuits related to personal injury. Winged flight requires considerable stamina and a fair amount of upper-body strength. While safety officers do exist, busy tourist hubs see an accident about once a month, or so. Usually, an overenthusiastic amateur launches from a high perch, makes it out to the middle of the open air, runs out of stamina, and panics.

Even at 0.166 of Earth's gravity (1.62519 m/s^2), a fall from 20 meters can hurt someone, especially if they land badly.

Well thought out and seriously cool. Wouldn't some folks work to make better/more ergonomically effective wings? I think there'd be a tech race as well as pure athletics.

Also, do they do winged flight on the bigger space colonies?

[DaibhidC]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Are any of the rest of those even sports. Maybe the hang gliding, but are there even any parachuting or scuba competitions? I suppose you can race in anything that can move, so I suppose you could theoretically hold a scuba race, but I've never heard of one. An endurance event seems pretty pointless - biggest tank wins?

According to Wikipedia, "Sport Diving is an underwater sport that uses recreational open circuit scuba diving equipment and consists of a set of individual and team events conducted in a swimming pool that test the competitors’ competency in recreational scuba diving technique." I'd never heard of it before, either.

Actually, looking at Wikipedia's entry on extreme sports, there's a couple where I'm not sure there's any competitive aspect. Apparently, what makes them sports is "The participant has to dispose of considerable skill and/or physical ability to avoid poor execution of the activity" (and what makes them "extreme" is "poor execution of the activity has to result in considerable risk of serious physical harm to the participant" - as the lunar race suggests, it's possible extreme sports have got more extreme by 2100 simply because "serious physical harm" has become less serious.)

[Shostak]

Zero G sports. Basketball or football crossed with the training games in Ender's Game. I wonder what jiu-jitsu would be like in zero G? Even racquet ball in zero G is a whole new game.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Another thought - not all sportsmen are still biological. Ghosts loaded into custom shells could play some pretty insane sports "safely", and even have fair competitions if all the players use the same model shell.

Such wonderful irony that only in the age where genetic edges can be bought pre and post birth, may such truly fair matches of pure skill occur.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Zero G sports. Basketball or football crossed with the training games in Ender's Game. I wonder what jiu-jitsu would be like in zero G? Even racquet ball in zero G is a whole new game.

I once imagined an alien space creating such a sport. Jump-ball, where jumping and kicking off a wall or "ceiling" was part of the game. Basketball injuries have nothing on coming full force head first into a wall due to a mistimed leap. More acrobatic than strength limited as in real world B-ball.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by malloyd

... Are any of the rest of those even sports. Maybe the hang gliding, but are there even any parachuting or scuba competitions? ...

Wikipedia says there are parachuting competitions. They're accuracy contests, not races:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parach...assic_accuracy

In THS, one could stage other accuracy contests in zero-G. How closely can you get to the target on the wall / habitat / ice-ring-boulder over there using only your initial push-off from the wall / habitat / ice-ring-boulder over here? Are you confident enough in your skill to bet on it?

[Flyndaran]

For some inane reason that makes me imagine micro-piloting of darts thrown by teammates?
Not knowing anything about actual curling, this sounds like curling. One "tosser", and one or more doing odd shuffling things to help the disc/puck/whatever slide to its destination.

[Shostak]

In Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space books, there is a game played by those ultra-wealthy people who have effective immortality in which they hire assassins to try to kill them within a specified time frame.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Well thought out and seriously cool. Wouldn't some folks work to make better/more ergonomically effective wings? I think there'd be a tech race as well as pure athletics.

Also, do they do winged flight on the bigger space colonies?

I'd say "yes" to both questions, and even say O'Neill cylinders have "end-to-end" races of all sorts -- not just winged flight, but also human-powered, microlight aircraft. Also, the "wing shops" and "muscle flight" communities probably have cultures quite similar to that found, currently, in high-end road-bike and mountain-bike shops, places that sell climbing gear.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/flig...ines-16441824/

I'd bet you'd also have the same sort of conflicts between "muscle-heads" and "airbikers" that we see between hikers and mountain-bikers.

For cap-to-cap airbike races, I'd say the microlights must launch from one end, touch down in a field halfway along, launch again and climb back up to the opposite cylinder cap, touch down and relaunch, touch down again halfway along, and then return to the starting point.

A variation would allow for a relay team, the wind currents in a large O'Neill cylinder make for special risks and challenges.

The wing races, on the other hand, would mostly likely be straight-up cap-to-cap speed and endurance tests.

Also, if a ring habitat has large hollow spokes, it might have "wing recreation centers" up in the "luna-G" sections, toward the hubs.