ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Futurists have just the thing for sports fans tired of fighting the crowds in packed stadiums on Earth -- an arena in space.
As they envision it, space tourists in the 21st century will be able to Velcro themselves down in their seats and enjoy a cold beer and a hot dog while cheering for the home team.
That’s the vision of Patrick Collins, a professor at Azabu University in Japan. Along with engineers at Hazama Corp. in Tokyo, Collins foresees various kinds of sports centers sprouting above
Earth. It would be, he says, a natural extension of what some expect to be a flourishing space hotel business in the 21st century.
"For
tourism to really grow in orbit, people need destinations there," Collins told SPACE.com. "To make your orbital hotel more fun and to keep up with the competition for paying guests, you’ve got to build bigger spaces. A next step would be constructing the space stadium."
Once travel costs to low Earth orbit fall to less than $20,000 per person, space travelers could avail themselves of front row seats in a full-size sports stadium big enough to house major sporting events.
Furthermore, special space sporting competitions might be broadcast down to Earth on a pay-per-view basis to maximize profits. That sort of exposure might help stimulate "ground huggers" to eventually partake in a little lighter side of life, thanks to microgravity.
Collins unveiled the idea of a high-flying sports stadium at an Albuquerque conference called
Space 2000 & Robotics 2000; an international conference and exposition on engineering, construction, operations and business in space. It was sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The orbital sports stadium would be 328 feet (100 meters) long and 196 feet (60 meters) in diameter. Some 600 individual panels would be fit together to form the structure, a task handled by robotic spacecraft.
The complex would have a volume of 8.1 million cubic feet (230,000 cubic meters), far roomier than the most spacious chamber ever flown --
Skylab in the 1970s.
"Although (Skylab) was much larger than any room in the International Space Station (
ISS) now being developed," Collins said, "it was also of only moderate size. The contained air was less than 1 ton (1,016 kilograms) in mass. By comparison, the stadium would contain a single 230-ton (233,680-kilogram) body of air."
Now here’s the fun part
One sporting event sure to be a hit is competitive flying races, Collins said.
Each team member would be outfitted with large fabric wings. The size of the stadium affords one of these winged warriors a turning circle of about 165 feet (50 meters). That’s room enough to do some wicked maneuvering. Gymnastic events, as well as zero-G days for the general public would be popular, organized much like fun-for-the-whole family ice-rink skating here on Earth.
"The first company to provide a volume large enough to permit guests to experience genuine bird-like flight [is] sure to gain market share and further increase the total pool of customer revenues," Collins said.
Large sports facilities are expected to form a significant part of the orbital tourism industry in 2030, he estimates.
The construction and operation of such a facility would be commercially feasible once space travel costs fall to rock-bottom prices. The thought gives rise to space traffic of a few hundred thousand passengers per year, Collins said.
The roughly 1,700 ton (1.7 million kilogram) stadium would cost about $600 million, including manufacturing, assembly and launch costs.
Hot dogs and cold drinks would be provided.
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