For those, like me, who don't like following professional sports, here's a way to get in on the excitement of NCAA basketball's March Madness.
Dave Mosher at Discovery Channel wrote a great story about NASA's new outreach effort Mission Madness, which creates a bracket for space missions rather than college basketball teams. The tournament provides match-ups between 64 past, present, and future missions in each of four divisions--Nebula, Stellar, Galaxy, and Horizon.
People vote on the agency's greatest missions, and an updated bracket is produced. The final round is running now so place your vote for either SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SPB, the Superpressure Balloon. Interestingly, both final round contenders are science missions rather than exploration missions. Check NASA April 8 to find out the overall winner and see where some anticipated favorites like the Viking missions and the Hubble Space Telescope fell out of contention.
Along with the charge you get from trying to pick winners, you can peruse the Web site and learn a little about all the missions.
If you would like to see a similar version pitting high-energy physics experiments against one another next year, send you votes here for the 64 tournament experiments.
