Sports from the past week.

Past sports article for the week of 3/22/06

Sports In Space Not Yet Viable
By, Grey Sports

Though technology has advanced far enough fro humans to travel into space on a moderately routine manner it has not yet advanced to the point where anything in space is entertaining.
It is the opinion of many that this is why the space race is faltering, especially as late entry China begins to gear up with barely a whimper of excitement to accompany the new competition.
There have been a number of independent attempts to start sports by astronauts, though these have been derided as the attempts of bored people to fill in the long, empty hours between duties.
Games of Penball, body bouncing, and catch the paper are nothing compared to what was expected of an environment devoid of gravity, which in my opinion sadly lacked in terms of creativity, with the only available ideas being something Earthbound with the caveat “Zero-G” added.
Purists who criticise the antics of astronauts are apparently ignorant that this is how most sports started up in this manner. One complaint is quite valid however, and that is the lack of structure to these games.
While the idle play of astronauts may make for games of the future more serious attempts are required just to keep the notion of space sports alive.
Already rules exist for Zero-G Soccer, Zero-G Hockey, Star Spangling and Zero-G Tic Tac Toe, all without a single attempt to actually play any of these.
Only Star Spangling is feasible onboard a space shuttle or the international space station at the moment due to limited space. While any of the games could be played in orbit outside of these facilities the lack of anything to stop the ball, bat, stick, chocolate fudge or even the goals themselves from just floating away is a hindrance.
Several sports team owners have floated (no pun intended) the idea of funding a special chamber on the international space station specifically for sports. This idea has run into trouble from Nasa, the Japanese and Russians. Nasa does not want to waste time on apparently frivolous endeavours when they have enough trouble funding their programs as is, the Japanese refuse to allow anyone to break their monopoly on the largest neon sign in existence since a crucial part of the plan is to allow sponsors to stick whatever the hell they want on the exterior of the space station as if it were a cheap race car or athlete, and the Russians thought that if they were objecting the US and other Western nations would be in favour, and it’s too late to go back now.
Jealousy and moronic political decisions aside several billionaire/adventurer/entrepreneurs are looking into the possibility of their own space station dedicated exclusively to tourists and sports.
The proposed Spacesphere would be painted bright orange, feature facilities for three hundred people, up to seventy small yappy dogs, and all necessary attendants, nannies, chefs, personal assistants, hand holders, bodyguards and stalkers that three hundred people so obscenely rich they can fly to space on a whim could need.
The major stumbling blocks to this project is the decision of which sport will be played, the ability to play said sport since and the number of hairs on the head of the newly shaved Natalie Portman.