So You Want To Play Real-Life Quidditch?

NASA Gives Moon Sport The Lunar Tick

Want to play a real-life game of quidditch, like Harry Potter? Yes, you too could fly around heroically, just like the apprentice wizards at Hogwarts. I can even tell you where the games will be held – on the Moon. No, I ain’t kidding. I just came across this archived report from a fortnight ago, while I was researching something else today.
It’s a story by Jonathan Richards at TimesOnline, based on an interview with one of NASA’s chief scientists. Jeff Volosin, the lead global exploration strategy manager for NASA, said a ``micro-gravity sports competition’’ held inside a giant bubble on the surface of the moon was not beyond the realm of possibility.
“If you had a large, pressurised habitat, people could take advantage of the low-gravity environment by attaching wings to themselves and flying about,” Volosin said. It’s not as far-fetched as you might think, because the United States announced three months ago it would send astronauts back to the moon in 2020, with plans for a permanently occupied settlement from 2024.
“Ever since the end of the Apollo program, folks around the world have been thinking about returning to the Moon, and what they would like to do there,” Volosin said. Flying around like the wizards at Hogwarts is certainly within the realms of possibility. In addition, Vosolin flagged the notion of ``lunar commerce’’.
Not familiar with the term? I wasn’t either, but the article explains it succinctly.
``Among the ideas proposed,’’ says the article, ``are using cameras to monitor the melting of the polar ice caps, the establishment of `lunar heritage sites’, such as where the first astronauts landed, and `robotic races’, in which teams on earth would steer remote-controlled devices through courses on the moon’s surface.
If you want more details, the NASA paper outlining the objectives of the proposed lunar colony is called ``181 Things To Do On The Moon’’. I’d say quidditch would rank pretty high, but you might like to leave a comment with your suggestions for things to do on the moon …