Aero'sFuture: Sports

YEAR POSTED: 2009

When thinking of the future, as in within the twenty-first century, three new and exciting forms of athletics come to mind. These adventurous sports are adrenalized spin-offs of current activities.

Space Diving
In a world where humanity desires and leans towards becoming excessively daring and fearless, space diving will take roots as the extreme variety of adrenalized sports. A space diver will fly up to the edge of space and become nearly weightless. The apparel that one will need is a pressurized G-suit (capable of withstanding extraodrinary temperatures) with an oxygen mask. Once the space diver's plane reaches an altidude of nearly two hundred thousand feet, the individual will jump out and speed back to Earth at terminal velocity. The experience will be remarkable. The space diver will feel like they are not falling at all seeing as it would take them almost forty-five minutes to reach the Earth's surface.

Hoverboarding
Back to the Future: Part 2 set an amazing example of what a hoverboard may look and act like. Many individuals share a common misconception that hoverboards will have the ability to fly around at any altitude they desire. This is obviously not the case; hoverboards will remain at a constant elevation above any surface.

Just like a skateboard of this decade, an ultramodern hoverboard will require a user to push off the ground for momentum. Inventors have not yet figured out a possible way to turn a hoverboard for directional purposes, but they have come close. Many methods have been tried to achieve levitation of the board; unfortunately, none have worked to expectation.

Hydrostatic Hovering
A hydrostatic hoverboard would float on a pocket of air just like a conventional hovercraft. But dissimilarly to the status quo, it would not use a skirt, but instead use a thin film of water vapor to trap the air pocket. Since the amount of water wasted and the energy required to power the device, the hydrostatic method is highly impractical.

Magnetism
A solely better concept of levitating a board is with using magnetics. Since ionized air contains both positive and negative ions, the electrostatic interactions between them would act exactly like pressure, thus keeping a pocket of air under the board at all times. Unfortunately, both of these methods have failed when tried, but inventors have not given up. A reasonable time frame for hoverboards would be around fifteen to twenty years from now.

Free Running
Free running has been around since the 1980's and involves participants to run, jump, and use a city's conrete environment to perform a variety of tricks. Not much is to say about this type of sport except that over the next twenty years, it will become widely popularized. Shoes containing specialized rubber will allow people to run up the sides of buildings with enough momentum. The rubber will also have a degree of bounciness to allow users to jump higher and farther.