Sports on Mars - What kind of sports will Martians play?

Byron · 2002-06-06 12:22:58

Hey,

A thought came to me when I made a post about swimming pools on Mars, namely how diving could be very popular on Mars. Just imagine performing human aerobatics from a 12-meter high-dive in the .38 gee, having all that time before hitting the water. :0 I do think that water-related sports would predominate on Mars, as pools could be dug out in underground caverns, etc, and it would have tremedous appeal among the settlers.

Traditional sports like basketball, football, and baseball would most likely be inpractical on Mars, due to the low gee and the vast amount of space you'd need just to play. I imagine things like wrestling and gymnastics (especially gymnastics--even a klutz like me would be able to do it!..lol) would be popular, perhaps a modified form of tennis or racquetball as well.

The idea of playing golf out in the open in suits, or even outdoor rock climbing (think of a suit tear 1500 meters up the side of Olympus ??? ) I just don't see happening, although it's interesting to think about it.

Anyone out there who might've thought of what sports might be like on the Red Planet, I'd love to hear from you... I do recall reading a short story by KSR about baseball (on a very large field) on Mars, however this was after terraformation and people didn't have to bother with suits at that point.

Josh Cryer · 2002-06-06 12:39:38

My favorite sport would have to be baseball. It's the only game that I know of that doesn't have a time limit, so you can relax and make it an all day affair.

I think it would be possible to put gyroscopes inside of balls to counter-act gravity. A ball with a few rotating gryoscopes would feel very ?heavy.? So outdoor sports like baseball, football, soccer, aren't entirely out of the question.

Gymnastics and other forms of aerobics would reach a totally new level. I can't imagine what Wushu would be like!

Palomar · 2002-06-06 13:12:27

Byron wrote: "Anyone out there who might've thought of what sports might be like on the Red Planet, I'd love to hear from you."

I'm a rather un-athletically inclined person, but considering how cold it is on Mars I don't see how an outdoor ice-skating rink would be too difficult. Put on some traction-less boots or rig a pair of blades to the undersides of your boots, weight your space-suit down, and start doing those figure-8s. As for indoors, volleyball doesn't require a lot of space...and apparently you'll have extra time to see the ball coming your way!

I'm not sure any of this is feasible, however; just some ideas that popped into my head.

*lol* Ice skating on Mars...I'd fall and break my neck even in the low gravity!

--Cindy

Adrian · 2002-06-06 16:53:27

Kim Stanley Robinson has this to say about baseball on Mars, in his short story Arthur Sternback Brings The Curveball To Mars.

Baseball on Mars was a high-scoring game. But beautiful anyway. It was like a dream, really. First of all the horizon, when you're on a flat plain like Argyre, is only three miles away rather than six. It's very noticeable to a Terran eye. Then their diamonds have just over normal-sized infields, but the outfields have to be huge. At my team's ballpark it was nine hundred feet to dead centre, seven hundred down the lines. Standing at the plate the outfield fence was like a little green line off in the distance, under a purple sky, pretty near the horizon itself - what I'm telling you is that the baseball diamond about covered the entire visible world. It was so great.
They played with four outfielders, like in softball, and still the alleys between fielders were wide. And the air was only as thin as Everest base camp, and the gravity itself only bats .380, so to speak. So when you hit the ball solid it flies like a golf ball hit by a big driver. Even as big as the fields were, there were still a number of home runs every game. Not many shut-outs on Mars. Not till I got there anyway.

Great story. You can read it in his anthology, The Martians.

Phobos · 2002-06-06 19:20:40

I think track and field sports could find a new audience on Mars. They're boring as #### to watch on Earth but just imagine watching that pole vaulter toss themselves to heights that only athletes on Earth could dream of. We might have to ban javelin throwing events though. It could be a short lived event if they threw them a little to good and through the walls of the dome.

My favorite sport would have to be baseball. It's the only game that I know of that doesn't have a time limit, so you can relax and make it an all day affair.

I think any sport that involves a ball would be ten times more entertaining on Mars than on Earth. Imagine how far you could throw and kick them.

*lol* Ice skating on Mars...I'd fall and break my neck even in the low gravity!

Come to think of it, I bet ice skating could be a popular sport on Mars. You wouldn't really have to construct anything elaborate except for a pool. You wouldn't have to plant any grass or manufacture any plastic substitutes, and on top of that it could stay cold so there'd be less energy expenditure.
Yep, I think ice skating could become the official sport of Mars.

Byron · 2002-06-07 07:39:29

While we're on this subject of atheletic activities, I was wondering about the effects of Martian gee on running. I read an article a while back that a person walking on Mars would go 60% as fast on Earth, with half the calories burned, due to the slower pendular movement of a person's legs in the lower gravity.

Running, on the other hand, I haven't heard anyone speculate about. Since the low gravity prevents one from taking 'fast' steps, I would think that a different style of human locomotion would have to come about, adapting the long bounding leaps of a kangaroo, for instance. In that case, I imagine one could tavel much faster than a runner here on Earth, up to twice the speed, maybe?? Certainly, running, like walking would involve less energy on Mars; running a full marathon wouldn't be that big of a deal for the average person..(unless you were trying to run it in a bulky pressure suit..lol)

Josh Cryer · 2002-06-07 07:55:37

Actually, I'm not so sure about that. Terrans on Mars would, in my opinion, have a hard time getting speed while running. Our bodies have relatively short legs... 2.4 times shorter (I assume we could use that number here) than they would need to be to give us Earth type movement.

Every time you run here, you go about a foot off the ground. So on Mars, you'd go 2.4 feet off the ground. If not higher, since your momentum would carry you a bit too.

Running would be more like leeping, although timing it shouldn't be too big of a deal once you're used to it. The question is whether or not leeping can get you the speeds you're talking about.

Personally, I wouldn't want to play a sports game that involved running half a mile to pick up a ball, hehe.

anansi · 2002-06-14 18:25:47

I think martians are going to find themselves too damn busy to get into organized sports like we have here.

OTOH, I can see simulated disasters becoming their own competition sports. Emergency drills could be a team competition, where players are ranked not only on their speed and accuracy, but their ability to cooperate with people they might not have worked with before. In this version, the rules of the game evolve at the same pace as the colony develops, with new subroutines every time a new componant is added to the colony. This is the one time where it would be acceptable to practice hacking the system.

Byron · 2002-06-15 09:37:43

I think martians are going to find themselves too damn busy to get into organized sports like we have here.

I highly disagree. I think sports and organized activities of a physical nature will be an integral part of the Mars pioneers' lives. Due to the low gee, exercise will be an essential part of the settler's lives, and yes, they will be working hard, but recreation is vitally important to sustaining a balanced, healthy lifestyle. The low gravity will also make athletic activity that much more accessible to people, i.e., even a total klutz like me would be able to perform diving and gymnastics and the like in the .38 gee of Mars..lol.

Once the early pioneers get past the initial hurtles of providing themselves with air, water, and food; sports will be a big thing on Mars...the low gravity will prove to be irresistible

B

Runnerbrax · 2003-08-29 14:53:26

i don't if my previous post made it to the thread so i will re-post. First off Wushu would ROCK on Mars im an avid martial artist and martial arts fan so i know how cool that would be. And one more thing, i don't know about you but iwould love to see rollerball tried again. it almost flew here in the states and i think it would be cool myself to have go over to the red planet but i know it is just a futile wish.

Byron · 2003-08-30 05:52:50

Thanks, Runnerbrax, for pulling up this year-old thread...

Yeah, martial arts would be truely awesome on Mars...just think, all those cool Matrix-style stunts would actually be possible in that low gravity... :;):

Question: I realize that ordinary walking will be about 60% slower on Mars, as walking depends on gravity to achieve the pendulumic effect of putting one foot ahead of the other...but what about running / sprinting? I imagine this would involve pushing off with each of your feet in a spring-like fashion, picking up speed with each "step." Provided you're inside a roomy hab or dome (no pressure suit to deal with), I imagine you could go pretty fast...exactly how fast, I'd like to know. (Olympic runners max out at just over 30 kph, I think.)

Another thing is bicycles....how fast do you think you could get going on a bike in the low gee? (esp. if the air pressure is quite low inside the dome, like 350 mb.)

B

Algol · 2003-08-30 11:56:51

you could technically go pretty fast on a bike, less gravity would lead to less friction, and less air pressure would have a similar effect. However if you shifted your weight too suddenly whilst going fast or hit even the smallest bumb, you'd be in serious trouble!

Hazer · 2003-11-02 01:58:11

Hmm...Sports to try on Mars? Hockey-of any type.
If nothing else, the fights would be hilarious.
Also, weightlifting would probably be rather popular. Just wait, it gets even better! Swing dancing in Martian gravity *drools*

dicktice · 2003-11-02 14:50:46

Human powered flight (under pressurized canopy) using flapping wings, or. . . ?

Hazer · 2003-11-03 09:03:11

Competitive...humor.

RobS · 2003-11-03 09:46:36

I wonder how high a basketball hoop needs to be on Mars; the body's center of gravity (which is about a meter off the ground) would go up 2.5 times as far. How high can basketball players jump now? Since various informal forms of basketball are played in very small areas--like driveways--I suspect it will be played on Mars as soon as there's space, a ball, and a hoop. It could even be played outside in suits (which would allow a lower hoop, too, since the suit will almost double the player's mass).

I would like to see ballet and other forms of dancing on Mars; they would be fascinating to witness.

Even games like darts and juggling would be interesting and fun in the lower gravity.

-- RobS

Josh Cryer · 2003-11-03 15:19:31

Hmm, the top of a regulation basketball hoop rim is 10 feet. I figure the best way to adjust Martian hoops is to just make them 10 feet plus 2.6 times the height of the average jump, as RobS seems to be suggesting.

So between 14-16 feet?

According to this site, the average jump a male can do is about 50 cm (or about 20 inches). Round it up to 2 feet or so, multiply by 2.6, you got something around 15 feet. Sounds reasonable.

Suit games could just be played using current hoop heights. 10' or so.

Oh, and I honestly don't see darts being that much different on Mars. When I play darts, I throw the darts so fast that gravity plays a very minimal role. But certainly juggling would be interesting; it'd be a whole lot easier.

Trebuchet · 2004-04-26 04:32:38

I completely agree with the basketball idea. People would bounce around like they have trampolines in their shoes, it would be nuts, like the old NBA Jam game brought to life. I don't even like basketball and think it would be fun. The 14 or 15 foot height makes sense, but it's likely that the first hoops will be bolted to the side of a hab or something and so the actual 'official' Mars basketball hoop height is likely to be determined by the height of the wall or whatever.

I predict that bowling is a major Martian pasttime, too. If nothing else you can play in a hallway. Same with pingpong and pool. Board games and card games are likely to be a big way to waste time too, same with video games, although those aren't really sports.

However, until they get the rinks set up for hockey, heh, there really isn't a sport that I can think of that allows for the meaningless release of agression and tension. So I predict a Martian innovation here of some form: a contact sport which can be played in a small indoor area with no more equipment than a ball... and maybe your spacesuit minus the helmet.

Algol · 2004-04-26 08:29:30

there really isn't a sport that I can think of that allows for the meaningless release of agression and tension. So I predict a Martian innovation here of some form: a contact sport which can be played in a small indoor area with no more equipment than a ball

Boxing? :;):

Scrap the rink and the sticks - just let them go at each other!

Palomar · 2004-04-26 10:33:39

*Ice skating.

Ice speed skating.

Tobogganing.

---

Olympics on Earth...what will Super Games be called on Mars? Mons Olympics!

--Cindy

Trebuchet · 2004-04-26 23:06:46

You know, I bet that a boxer on Mars could punch his opponent literally off his feet due to the lighter gravity. That would be a hoot to watch. Plus they would be bouncing around like kangaroos on speed.

REB · 2004-05-06 13:09:14

Snow Skiing! Jumps would grand. (Anyone remember the Agony of Defeat?). Black Diamonds would be a snap.

Surfing would be neat, but you would have to builds a wave pool. That would be so cool to have a 9 meter wave to surf down in Mars gravity.

Rodeo’s would be interesting, but unlikely unless Mars is fully terraformed and there are plentiful cattle grazing the green fields of Mars.

Mundaka · 2004-05-29 02:42:40

Rxke · 2004-05-29 02:52:14

But with no big moon, how much actual surf would you get?

*Me imagines Mundaka's eyebrows crawl up in utter horror...*

Palomar · 2004-05-29 12:09:37

But with no big moon, how much actual surf would you get?
*Me imagines Mundaka's eyebrows crawl up in utter horror...*

*Good point, Rik.

Mundaka, for a guy who's so into surfing and ocean waves...aren't you living in the wrong area? I mean, what's the "Rio Grande" nowadays...a pathetic trickle. Elephante Butte Lake? Don't bother (a long drive for you anyway).

Chihuahuan Desert. :hm:

Actually, it's been nearly 20 years since I've seen the ocean. For me, such vast expanses of water exist only in photos and movies. Prior to moving -here- I was "landlocked" in the Midwest.

I think it's time hubby and I got in the car and slammed the accelerator all the way to the CA coast. -laugh-

--Cindy

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Re: Sports on Mars - What kind of sports will Martians play?

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