Could a football reach the Moon? NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman certainly thinks so. If the United States win the FIFA World Cup 2026™, Isaacman jokingly promised that NASA would take the official match ball there. It would echo the famous story of Alan Shepard, who became the first person to hit a golf ball on the Moon in 1971.

The idea may sound like a novelty at first, but it feels made for Houston, a city where football and spaceflight have come together like nowhere else during this World Cup.

Houston, Texas has long been synonymous with NASA, astronauts and human spaceflight. Now the FIFA World Cup 2026 is giving the city another way to share that story with the world. While the players battle for goals and a place in the next round, the Texan metropolis is also using the tournament to celebrate exploration, innovation and the urge to look far beyond the horizon.

The official host city poster captures that idea perfectly, with an astronaut showing off his football skills with a backdrop of planets, stars and the Houston skyline. It is an image that feels fitting for a city whose history has been closely tied to space exploration for decades.

Where football meets spaceflight

At the FIFA Fan Festival™, fans can experience that connection first-hand. Among the biggest attractions is Esphera, a spectacular projection dome whose design is inspired by the official match ball for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Inside, Space Center Houston takes visitors on a 360-degree journey that brings together innovation, storytelling and the Artemis II mission.

In Houston Hall, NASA Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston showcase Houston’s identity as the home of human spaceflight, giving fans a chance to experience the city beyond football.

For Keesha Bullock, Chief Operating and Strategy Officer at Space Center Houston, the partnership makes perfect sense. Both football and spaceflight, she says, are about teamwork, perseverance and inspiring people to believe in something bigger than themselves, exactly the values Space Center Houston wants to promote during this World Cup.

The link between football and spaceflight has also gone beyond exhibitions. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman & Victor Glover have also visited Houston Stadium during the tournament, highlighting the close connection between the World Cup and the city’s spaceflight tradition.

A journey far from over

The official match ball’s journey has long since taken it beyond the stadiums of this World Cup. Even before the tournament began, a ball had already travelled to the International Space Station. There, its integrated technology was tested under space conditions as part of a collaboration between FIFA and NASA.

And at Space Center Houston, visitors can experience this extraordinary connection in even more depth. The special exhibition Galaxy’s Game highlights the similarities between elite sport and spaceflight. Visitors can tackle interactive challenges on a simulated lunar surface and discover why discipline, precision and teamwork are essential both on the pitch and in space.

Among the most poignant exhibits is a football with a remarkable story. The ball once belonged to astronaut Ellison Onizuka’s high-school team, whose players had signed it before the ill-fated Challenger mission in 1986. After the tragedy, the ball was recovered and returned to Onizuka’s family before fellow astronaut Shane Kimbrough finally took it to the International Space Station some years later. Today, it is one of the most powerful exhibits in Galaxy's Game.

For Paul Spana, Director of Collections and Curator at Space Center Houston, there could be no better place to tell that story than in the city. As he says, Houston is home to astronaut training and human spaceflight after all, and that is exactly why the meeting of football and space exploration feels so fitting.

So what would happen if someone kicked a football on the Moon? With much lower gravity and no atmosphere, Spana estimates that the ball could actually travel several kilometres.

Whether an official FIFA World Cup match ball will ever actually reach the Moon remains to be seen, but the idea itself no longer feels quite so far-fetched. Indeed, it captures the very essence of what Houston brings to the FIFA World Cup 2026. Nowhere else do the passion for football and the pioneering spirit of spaceflight come together so naturally. It is a meeting of two worlds driven by the same values: teamwork, ambition, curiosity and the courage to keep crossing new frontiers.