In ninth grade, I got in trouble in gym class for talking (oh, the horror). As a punishment, I had to write a two-page essay on the epitome of all Olympic sports; the high jump. Being one to never pass up an opportunity, I decided to share my essay with all of my dear cyber-readers. Oh, and I got an A+ on the essay, in case you were wondering.

The High Jump perhaps represents man’s ascent into greatness. One second you are soaring through the air with the grace of an eagle, the next you are falling, a frenzy of arms and legs, and finally, you hit the ground like a sack of beans.

It was Neil Armstrong who best summed up the symbolism of the high jump when he said, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Of course, as most anybody with half a brain knows, he said that when he became the first man to walk on the moon. Which leads me to wonder… What would the high jump be like if it were held on the moon? Better yet, Pluto?

The high jump, unlike most other Track and Field events, was not played in the original Olympic Games in ancient Greece. It was invented by the Celts, and later spread, with unbridled enthusiasm, to the rest of the world. Some scientists have been questioning whether or not it was actually the Celts who invented it, or a bunch of pod people impersonating the Celts who were sent to the Earth to cause ultimate destruction. However, these scientists also have been doing extensive drug “research,” and their theories are currently being reviewed by a panel of experts.

Throughout history, scientists have been hard at work trying to improve the style of high jumping. Originally, there were a few styles that people used that attained relatively high jumps. The most popular was the scissors jump. However, the world of high jumping was changed for the better when Dick Fosbury invented the “Fosbury Flop,” which involved twisting around when you reached the bar, and going over it with your back to the ground. When scientists grew tired of calculating parabolas and formulating how to attain the highest jump possible, they became restless and rowdy. They began rioting. They threw stones at old ladies on the sidewalk outside their lab. Finally, in an attempt to quiet the physicists, NASA assigned them a special project. This project: What would the high jump be like on Pluto?

There are the obvious differences. Because Pluto is so far away from the sun, it would be very dark and very cold. It would be necessary to set up large stadium lights and heaters. Of course, the problem we run into here is where to plug these lights and heaters in. Surely there are outlets here and there, but are they connected to anything? Is there an electric company on Pluto? And even if there is, are the outlets polar or nonpolar?

In addition, the atmosphere of Pluto is not safe for humans to survive in. Because of this, the competitors would have to compete in large, bulky, extremely heavy space suits. This would not only weigh them down considerably; it would interfere with the running and jumping motions as well. Also, the soles of the space suit boots are well over the regulation ½ inch thickness. This cannot be changed. If the soles were any thinner, it might result in a leak, which would result in your brains dribbling out of your head through your ears.

Pluto is a very small planet. There is very little gravity. This allows the jumpers to jump higher. However, it also affects the approach. The Fosbury Flop makes use of a J-shaped approach. You must run this approach swiftly, with long strides. With less gravity, you would have no trouble taking long strides, but since you fall back to earth more slowly after each step, you would not be able to run as fast. Therefore, you would not have as much momentum by the time you reached the pole, twisted your hip around the inside as your leading foot left the ground, and jumped up into the air. You would also a lot less maneuverability with the bulky suit on. The high jumpers on Earth can clear the bar with only millimeters between, but if you were wearing a space suit, it would be much easier to knock the bar down by accident. Also, there is always the risk of breaking your helmet and decapitating yourself when you land on your neck and upper back on the mat.

Despite all of these factors which would lead to a lower jump, the low gravity would more than account for the differences. The following is a simple physics explanation of how to determine how high the highest high jump would be if it took place on Pluto:

Assuming that what is constant is the amount of potential energy, mgh, which the jumper can create, then the height attained is inversely proportional to the acceleration of gravity on the planet’s surface, g. Since g on Pluto is one sixth that of Earth, we can assume that the jumper would be able to jump six times as high on Pluto as on Earth. However, since the mass of the jumper on Pluto would be approximately doubled due to the mass of the spacesuit which he must wear to prevent his brain from dribbling out of his ears, and since h is inversely proportional to the total mass of the jumper, we can assume that the jumper would be able to reach a height three times that which would be attainable on Earth. Therefore, the highest jump ever, which is 2.45 meters, attained in 1993 by Javier Sotomayer, would be approximately 7.35 meters on Pluto. Of course, it would most likely be lower than that, due to problems discussed earlier in the paper.

And so, as we speak, somewhere in the uncharted backwaters of the western arm of the galaxy, there are some drugged scientists, trying to figure out the boundaries to which we can take our beloved sport of high jumping. Perhaps someday you will tune in to “Mystic Pluto High Jump” in which competitors take turns jumping 18 feet in the air. It is impossible to predict the future, but you can pay someone $20 dollars to do it for you.