What sports could safely and easily be played in space?

I recently asked about racing in space (The new Space Race - Racing!) and as expected while there were a few options they were mostly pretty limited.

However 2012rcampion did suggest that sports in space might be an interesting subject, and I agree. So what sort of sports might people play in space? The tech level is similar to in my racing question, so current technology plus maybe 20 or 30 years more advanced and considerable experience living and working in space.

The sport in question must be similar to our own sports in that:

• People can play it with friends
• The costs for people to play "for fun" should be low (think children buying a football and placing a few coats down to mark out goals).
• It can be played as a spectator sport with both a live and televised audience
• It's a team game
• It's physical but with only moderate risk of real injury
• I expect the game would be played in free fall but am open to alternatives (although there is no artificial gravity so any illusion of it would need to be achieved through spin or acceleration).

Would it need to be played in a constrained space or would it actually be reasonably possible to place large enough areas in space for a more large-scale game to be played?

At the very least children should be able to play it in the corridors of a space station or in a converted canteen or similar as large open leisure areas would be rare and expensive.

Note that we already discussed zero-g basketball here: How would basketball change to accommodate zero-g this already covered basket-ball style games and touched on football, so I'm not looking to duplicate what is already covered there.

posted almost 10 years ago

Tim B‭

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