In just one week, the NBA will invade Orlando for the 2012 NBA All-Star Weekend. And, if you’re not familiar with the area, O-Town is located relatively close to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, which have both been instrumental in the overall success of NASA. So to pay homage to the U.S. space program, Nike has decided to outfit three of their biggest stars in space-inspired sneakers for the All-Star Game. On Sunday, you’ll see Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant rocking their signature sneakers in special colorways that are meant to pay homage to the country’s space program.

For each sneaker, Nike has come up with a special “galactic theme” to help them do that. The Nike LeBron 9, for instance, is decked out in a bright orange colorway that is meant to evoke thoughts of the pressure suits worn by astronauts when they take off for outer space. His sneaker also features a mission patch that shows a lion—the same one that appears on most of his Nike products—flying through space. Meanwhile, the Nike Zoom KD IV draws it’s inspiration from the silver spacesuit that was often donned by late Oklahoma astronaut Gordon Cooper. He’s also got a mission patch that has a horse on it to symbolize his participation in the H-O-R-S-E competition a couple of years ago. And the Nike Zoom Kobe VII System features a “supernova” on it as well as “telescopic-inspired imagery” on the upper part of the sneaker. Pretty cool.

All three of the sneakers will be available for sale on February. And, in addition to these sneakers, Nike is also releasing a special space program-inspired Dunk, a Nike Flight One that will be available in two different space-inspired colorways, and, of course, the Nike Foamposite “Galaxy” that is simply out of this world. Make sure you check for all of these sneakers next weekend when the NBA invades Orlando.

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