Harlem Globetrotters Go to Space (No, Really)
Breaking: we just received the following press release…
The world-renowned Harlem Globetrotters, who have already left their indelible mark on 120 countries and six continents during their 83-year history, will now expand their historic travels to outer space.
The Globetrotters will become the first basketball team to send a ball to the Hubble Space Telescope when they launch an authentic Spalding Harlem Globetrotters ball from Kennedy Space Center in Florida today on board the space shuttle Atlantis – part of NASA’s fifth and final shuttle mission to the Hubble.
The team’s signature red, white and blue ball, a Globetrotters’ staple since 1985, will accompany the seven-member Atlantis crew on their 11-day mission to service the 19-year-old observatory, which orbits 350 miles above Earth.
“It is only fitting that the team that has seen more of the world than any other in history would have a presence beyond the stratosphere,” stated Globetrotters CEO Kurt Schneider. “This Globetrotters basketball will serve as an intergalactic symbol of accomplishment.”
NASA has taken pieces of historical and pop culture significance on an array of voyages in their 50-plus-year history. The Wright Flyer got only a few feet off the ground during its maiden flight in 1903, but wood and fabric from the Flyer was carried to the moon 66 years later by Apollo 11. A lightsaber prop used by Mark Hamill in his role as Luke Skywalker in “Return of the Jedi” was taken on Discovery’s trip to the International Space Station in 2007. And, of course, there are the two golf balls that astronaut Alan Shepard carried to the moon on Apollo 14 in 1971 and hit with a makeshift club.
Upon its return from space, the Globetrotter basketball will be placed in the team’s exhibit at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, where the Globetrotters are one of only six teams ever to be inducted.
The Harlem Globetrotters will soon have a presence in space. On board shuttle Atlantis when it lifts off Monday on a repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope will be a pair of basketballs. One belongs to the Globetrotters. The other, on loan from the University of Chicago, was once handled by Edwin Hubble, the astronomer for whom the telescope is named. Astronaut John Grunsfeld, an alumnus, is taking it up. Hubble tossed the ball around in a 1909 victory against Indiana University. Hubble was a star forward on the University of Chicago’s Big Ten champion teams of 1907-1908 and 1908-1909. – from MSNBC