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NASA Mission Madness Contest	03.20.2009 19:04

NASA's TV program NASA Edge is holding a contest to democratically elect the public's favorite "space" mission. I put "space" in quotations because it is arguable that some of the competitors did not technically go into "outer space" as the accepted definition of "space" holds, which is 100 km above sea level (SR-71 is one such example, whose justification is that the pilots needed to wear pressurized spacesuits to go to their operating altitude). The final winner will be narrowed down in 6 stages, from two starting groups of 32 competitors each. NASA attempted to make the contest as similar to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association, for once that is not a space related FLA (Four-Letter Acronym)) basketball March Madness setup as possible, see for yourself here: NASA Mission Madness bracket. Actually, the official Mission Madness bracket looks more basketball related than the NCAA contest's bracket that it tries to be like, see the following comparison:

NASA Edge Mission Madness tournament bracket Note the basketball and hoop

NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament bracket No such basketball paraphernalia pictured in the original March Madness bracket, except for some faded out X's and O's on a court play strategy in the background. I have digressed. The contest began yesterday March 19, 2009 and ends on April 8, 2009. As an email to NASA personnel explained, the public can also "learn about mission goals..." "and predict which missions their fellow fans will vote for during the single elimination round." The contest also has no limit to the number of votes allowed per person, so if you really want a particular mission to win, you could skip sleeping and vote for it 24/7. The place to go to vote (again and again) is: http://mission-madness.nasa.gov As hinted at above, there is quite a range of missions to vote for, from the early Gemini IV mission to the LRO/LCROSS spacecraft which has yet to launch this year, and from an altitude that the NASA modified B52 called NB-52 flies at to outside of our solar system with Voyagers 1 and 2. On the site you can pull up quick info on each mission before you vote.
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