Sportship

More about Sportship

You are on Sportship 1 heading towards Lunar Basketball Championship. It is this year’s biggest off world event, featuring the greatest, most unique athletes of all time. A wave of sportships are heading to lunar dome, but you have a ticket on the main ship carrying the superior athletes. This is a lunar basketball fans’ biggest dream.
While traveling with Basketball team to lunar dome, you watch them warmup & witness moves never before seen. There are higher jumps with softer landings that lead to less wear & tear on players. You record intense footage of star players dribbling in microgravity, bouncing balls off walls hundreds of feet away. You witness a 100 foot pass through 4 players’ legs that blows your mind. Thousands of screaming fans go off on that pass. You hear chants belt through Sportship’s interior: “Home team, home team, home team.” Vibes are high on Sportship 1.
Sportship 2 takes off an hour after Sportship 1. It carries a skeleton crew & modular components for multiple lunar sports leagues, necessary equipment for all lunar dome sports.
Lunar basketball has larger balls, wider rims, & taller hoops than terrestrial basketball. There are 8 hoops scattered around courts, 1 on each corner & 1 in each center. They are at staggered heights that determine their point total. Sportship 2 carries 16 hoops onboard, enough to fill main & warmup courts.
Lunar dome is not just a basketball arena, but also a tennis, golf, & bowling recreation center. Sportship 2 carries tennis racks & balls, both of which are larger than their terrestrial counterparts. Tennis rackets are easier to swing in lower gravity, so they are constructed larger for more likely contact. Larger balls are a necessary counterpart to larger rackets so they do not travel exorbitantly far. Lunar arena basketball court doubles as a tennis court.
Golf equipment is also transported aboard Sportship 2. Golf is a high quality lunar sport because there is minimal air resistance so balls travel further. There is minimal gravity so balls are larger & clubs are longer. Golf gloves are equivalent to those used for handling nuclear materials - they reach into open air while golfer remains inside. They hold a club that is outside to hit balls that are on a tee.
Bowling equipment undergoes a similar transformation, as balls are more massive but feel lighter & pins are huge but still tip over. Modularized bowling lanes are contracted for launch then rolled out upon landing. They are lined up next to each other to become an alley.
Sportship 1 touches down on least cratered section of lunar surface. Athletes depart first, to cheers & jeers from passengers. They go to their locker rooms, then other passengers depart & fill the stands.
Sportship 2 engine 14 misfires, melting the rim of engine 15 to cause erratic flow. Sportship 2 careens outside of nominal trajectory, compromising consistent inertia. Giant basketballs & golfballs crush crew members. On lunar surface, they are light & avoidable, but at 1 gravitational constant, they are lethal.
A shattered rack releases another rack. Bowling pins tumble from their frames. Folded court panels slide against stops hard enough to bend them. A stack of modular backboards collapses under extreme loads. Tennis balls are harmless individually, but hundreds escaping into narrow passageways become rolling debris under variable acceleration. Golf clubs flex, snap, then whip.
Sportship 2’s captain descends sporting decks after vehicle steadies. 30 minutes ago cargo looked like an equipment catalog with balls separated by sport, pins upright, greens rolled cleanly, rackets nested, & basketball hoops folded. Now, basketballs sit among bowling pins, torn golf grass hangs from handrails, broken wood from lanes disperses, & shattered backboards permeate.
Crowd at lunar arena learns of Sportship 2’s accident. There are multiple lives lost, & spare equipment will not arrive. Loudspeaker goes off: “We are playing this game in honor of the lost lives from Sportship 2. Beautiful souls were lost in a tragic accident. They fill this arena in spirit & in our hearts.”
Game begins & you record legendary footage of high intensity lunar basketball championship. It is best sporting even of your life. Lunar basketball becomes your favorite sport.