March Madness Shocker!!

[formulaterp]

No, not that March Madness.

NASA is holding a Mission Madness tournament pitting 64 missions up against one another, and you can vote to determine the winner. Clearly some shenanigans are going on as right now the 16th seed SPB (Super Pressure Balloon) is about to pull off a huge upset over MER (Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity). Either the refs have been accepting huge bribes or one of the rovers is intentionally throwing the game. I may as well throw away my bracket right now.

Head over to NASA and right this horrible injustice:

http://mission-madness.nasa.gov/mm/bracket.html

Voting ends tonight.

And yes, I do have money on this.

[hhEb09'1]

Super Pressure Balloon? awesome! what's that?

[tlbs101]

JWST will have no trouble getting to the sweet-16 but will face some stiff competition to get the the elite-8

.

[hhEb09'1]

Nevermind Spirit and Opportunity, Old John Glenn is getting beat up on both sides of the bracket--by fast planes. His STS-95 is losing 40-60 to the X-43 Scramjet, and Friendship 7 is losing 48-52 to the SR-71 Blackbird.

ETA: And Apollo 11 has to meet Hubble in the Sweet Sixteen? Who was responsible for this seeding??

[formulaterp]

MER's entire region is weak. Like a bunch of missions from the Southland and Mid-American conference. They should have skated right on into the Final Four. I actually envisioned a trio of unmanned missions (MER, Voyager and Viking) taking on the preseason favorite Apollo XI.

Been hearing rumors from the sportsbooks that a lot of late money came in on that freaking balloon. Shoulda known something was up.

[KaiYeves]

I have voted in this four times in the past few days, and always for Spirit and Opportunity. Right now it's about equal. But honestly, why aren't they kicking SPB butt?

Old John Glenn is getting beat up on both sides of the bracket--by fast planes. His STS-95 is losing 40-60 to the X-43 Scramjet, and Friendship 7 is losing 48-52 to the SR-71 Blackbird.

Okay, Friendship 7 definitely beats SR-71, but I voted for the X-43 over STS-95.

Scramjets beat nostalgia, but the first American orbit of the Earth beats any old spy plane.

[KaiYeves]

Spirit and Oppy lost to the balloons! I am totally not playing anymore...

[George]

Next round is Monday and Tuesday.

[mugaliens]

And yes, I do have money on this.

In what direction and odds?

[KaiYeves]

It's odd that STS-114 advanced but not STS-26.