What If You Played Basketball on Mars?

Pack your bags, you're going to Mars. Don't worry, this isn't a punishment, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity with a one way ticket. But who cares if you never see Earth again? Mars is the future, and as one of its first inhabitants, you get to decide how we make it. Livable Oxygen, Check. Water, Check. Food, Check. Entertainment. Seriously though, what would we do in our spare time? What sport would be fun to play on Mars? And how would the physics of Mars change the game? This is what if, and here's what would happen if you played basketball on Mars. In November of 2015, NASA announced that it planned to put astronauts on Mars in 20-30, and with Elon Musk's company SpaceX committed to making humanity multiplanetary, it's possible that humans of the next few generations could find themselves chilling on Mars. Getting to Mars is one thing, but how do we make the seven month flight worth it? Well, by bringing sports, specifically basketball, along with us. In theory, it would be pretty cool. You could run three times faster, jump three times higher, and throw three times harder, all within the comforts of a pressurized space suit. Which would make any of these superhuman feats quite exhausting if you think sports and space already looks kind of strange. Sports on Mars would be even weirder and a lot more dangerous, with the constant risk of being blown away or boiled alive. There's no sweeter victory than survival. First of all, the court itself would have to be three times bigger than what we have on Earth, since Mars has three times less gravity. But if you think less gravity would make it easier to do insane dunks and make incredibly far shots, it would be much harder than it looks. Assuming you were playing Mars street ball, you'd have to wear a space suit to protect yourself from the low pressure and cold temperatures, as well as the radiation from the sun. But every time you bent your leg or flexed your arm, you'd have to compress the air in the suit, which takes a lot of energy. Because traditional space suits are also thermally isolated. You'd also have to worry about overheating, and staying hydrated would be super important. But don't pour too much water in your in suit drink bag as it'll only make you heavier and less mobile. And if it ever broke, your helmet would start filling with water and you could drown. There would have to be some penalties for any sort of rough or physical play. If anyone's suit were to get ripped, the internal pressure would drop and the water inside your lungs would start to boil away, causing you to suffocate. But even if all the players on the court played extremely carefully, severe dust storms on Mars are common and this would be a huge hazard. A mid game dust storm would make it hard to see, causing players to collide and damaging each other's suits. And in another possible worst case scenario, you might even get blown away. Basketball on Mars wouldn't be the first time people have played sports in space. It wouldn't even be the first time people played sports on an extraterrestrial landmass. But it would be a lot deadlier. So maybe you should play it safe and leave your ball behind on your next interstellar journey. Do you know what you would do if you were the first person on Mars? Well, that's a story for another What if?