Physics and Fitness Meld for Space Tourist, NFL Player

Richard Garriott, the next civilian to fly in space, will be teaming up with Ken Harvey, former NFL player and four-time pro bowler, to create this activity that tries to involve students in space while getting them fit on Earth.

Space Sportilization is a series of fitness activities that students can do on Earth and then predict what similar moves would look like in free fall on the ISS.

Harvey stated, "With this activity, that we call, Space Sportilization, we hope to combine sports and space together to help students learn what science principles are at work when we play sports. Kids will help me work on a set of football drills that we will give to Richard Garriott to practice as he travels among the stars."

Garriot will record a set of educational videos while in orbit to demonstrate the basic physics of movment in free fall; Harvey has recorded a similar set of videos to show how these same exercises work on Earth.

See the earlier article on sports in space for a comparison of actual and science-fictional sports in space references; see also this Space Sportilization video. Via SpaceRef.

(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission of Technovelgy.com)

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