Voting has begun!
The story lines for the tournament are starting to take shape, and there are some early surprises. If you have any reactions, thoughts, issues or taunts, start posting.
Make your case to fellow fans, and get out the vote!
The Co-Host
P.S. You have to love Hubble’s taunt of the day… They said they could beat Aura with their bad lens. Cold, but after looking at the early numbers, it may be the cold, hard, truth. What do you think?
P.S.S. This has to be the real shocker…
Looks like the Mars Rovers need to send back images of some more votes!
Because somebody had to say it…
“Madness? THIS! IS! NASA!”
What about Aura and Aqua? I thought more of the project personnel would be voting for them???
Where is the love for MER (Spirit and Opportunity)? Come on, folks!
LRO deserves to be in the hunt also. An orbiter taking spy satellite quality images of Mars? What’s not to love about that?!
Oops — I meant MRO, not LRO. That’s the one thing that I’m concerned about with the way this is set up. It would be nice if all of the mission names were spelled out instead of abbreviated. I know that there is information posted about each one online — I’m just afraid that some missions like the MERs (Spirit and Oppy) may get short changed since most people don’t associate them with the mission name.
Well, I’m not sure I appreciate Hubble’s taunts. Hubble may have some fabulous images of the universe, but c’mon man. I watch the health of the Earth’s atmosphere and monitor the effects of global warming! You certainly can’t beat that with a “bad lens…”
QuarkSpin, I totally agree with you about your picks (and the abbreviation thing!). I’m been campaigning all week for both MER and MRO. Some of my more obvious picks (Apollo 8 and 11, Ares, etc), well, I won’t need to worry about them until next round, at least, but I thought sure MER would kill in its category. I mean, come on: a 90 day mission that survives five years and is STILL going strong? On Mars? How cool is that?
If I have to go stand on the curb with a “HONK IF YOU LOVE MER” sign, people, I’ll do it.
*throws darts at the SPB*
To all the outstanding competitors we wish you the best luck and may the best balloon win!!!!!!
The little/big Balloon that will!
Take that and rewind it back, Mars rovers got the voters to make ya bracket go (clap)
MER has obviously figured out how to vote automatically. SPB maintained a steady lead throughout the day until some quantum leap in voting occurred on the MER tally sheet late this afternoon, and the MER votes are still incrementing at a steady rate. So where do we file a protest? We wuz robbed.
Barbylon – I think SPB awoke a sleeping giant(s).
Danny RJ Ball – actually the MER came out in strong numbers this afternoon. If it was a bot, then I think we would have seen numbers in the 10-20 thousand. Rumor has it the MER folks got together to tag team vote at one time. Plus, the west coast voting probably started kicking in. MER has a huge following.
Don’t give up the ship. I sense SPB will have a strong come back.
NE Host
…from the motion picture “Star Wars I: The Phantom Meanace”…
[after a pod racer crashes and explodes into a billion pieces]
Beed: I don’t care what universe you’re from, that’s gotta hurt!
Are there awards for the best comments? Because I think Barbylon should get it. Just sayin’.
I hate to brag but I got a lot of people to honk their horns earlier in response to my MER signs. I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was, and not just the fact I was standing in the middle of the road dressed like Marvin the Martian. I think it was all about the love for the rovers, man. All about the love.
Looks like I’m going to have to start campaigning now for Prospector, though. We started the day off weak, but man, what a comeback by this evening! A mere six votes make up the difference. Yowza! Still, not quite as cool as the battle being waged between Clementine and the X-29: 1 vote. Just 1. Amazing.
The first round was easy. The big guys take out the experimental planes with ease. It’s only later that it really got tricky for me.
And, oh yeah, I voted for Spirit and Oppy. Go rovers!
I noticed that MER has 5000 votes while the maximum for the others is in the 1300 range. MER must have a friend named DAVE working for it, cause I definetly smell bot. I say get those scientist working with the shuttle right now off that project and get them to working on a way to keep them two from voting for themselves. New rule, bots cannot vote for themselves. Or maybe the bot is named Rosie…..
your link for the bracket here: https://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/missionmadness/bracket.html
is not working.
but it works here: http://mission-madness.nasa.gov/mm/bracket.html
you guys might want to fix that
David,
NASA is working to fix the problem. Thanks for the heads up!
The Co-Host
What you don’t get on the SPB project… its not just one project. Its not just one facility. Its not just one university. Its not just one customer.
We are the BALLOONATICS! Whats more impressive? 8000lbs, 25 miles up on an elegant, beautiful, .8 mil plastic BALLOON? Cutting edge science – Earth Science, Deep Space, Cosmic Ray, Atmospheric, Solar, Gamma ray… Having intelligent fresh college grads cut their teeth with the newest, latest instrument. Probably newer than that satellite thats been on the drawing table for 5 years…. The list goes on…
Or two RC cars?
See now, the rovers are my friends. Does your balloon have personality and their own Facebook and Twitter pages? I think not!
And plus, Earth is BORING!!!!!!
This is HMI (Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager) on NASA’s SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory). I am pretty much MDI’s (Michelson Dopper Imager) little brother. And MDI just happens to be on SOHO!
Now that we have the family connection out of the way – SOHO has been very busy over the past 13 years. I would need a memory upgrade to remember all the fantastic findings, the great pictures taken of the Sun and submitted back to Earth, and to remember all the comets that SOHO has discovered in its free-time… but needless to say, Round 2 for SOHO will be much more fun. Apollo 8 is waiting. Seriously?! A single digit Apollo mission?! Like MDI said during yesterday’s interview (see link below) — what has Apollo 8 (and 9 – 12) done for you lately? At least Apollo 13 gives us a laid-back movie-couch experience on a Friday night when we don’t want to go out…
We are planning on talking to SOHO’s coach between now and Round 2 and get some more insight. But the team is tight lipped right now. The only comment we were able to get was “What can you expect when you retire after only 6 d 03 h 00 m 42 s in Space? Compare that to 13 years SOHO has been on the job and you really get an idea!”
MDI’s Interview:
http://soi.stanford.edu/press/mdi-interview.html
I agree with Amanda reguarding MER. The Energizer bunny could not have done better than the design of those rovers. They just keep going and preforming great science. They’re running longer than cars Iv’e owned on earth. So come on science fans and bot geeks VOTE MER. Gotta love em!
Rovers…
The best part of the facebook page? YUP! A link to an Indian BALLOON Project! Way to go rovers!
If you had ever seen a 40 Million cubic foot balloon at 125,000 ft, gleaming like a diamond in the setting sun…
You’d change your mind….
Sorry rovers eat dust…
(Oh and balloons don’t gather dust and quit working!)
Oh dear Balloonatic, you’ve gotta understand, I’ve launched my own weather balloons before. Sure they’re pretty, but one launch and you’re done! It either deflates or explodes!
The rovers are just awesome. Ever seen the sunset pic? It’s beautiful! Much more than a balloon is.
Hey Balloon Boy, Blow it out your —. The MER Rovers rule. And continue to RULE MARS.And will still rule when your bubble bursts.A diamond in the sky is a beautiful sight, but I’d have to say that tire tracks on mars are pretty outstanding.May the best science win!
Oh Keri…
You’re right.
A latex weather balloon is as exciting as the mars RC rovers.
Perhaps you should do some research?
Oh poor Elizabeth…
The day will come when the lowly battery drained rovers are sitting in a dust bowl as a majestic balloon flys overhead… Covering more area and gathering more science than MRO could ever hope.
Google it.
SPB 11000
MER 10000
what is going on here?
I am enjoying the trash talking between SPB and MER. It reminds me of my conversations with the Co-host between takes on the NASA EDGE set.
NE Host
As much as I like aerial science, to paraphrase Dr. Henry Jones, “if you want to do REAL science, you’ve gotta get on the ground and get dirty!”
But to be fair, there should be a balloon-mounted instrument platform circling every planet that has an atmosphere in our system, and recon probes around the others. Make it so that they can “talk” to one another, to be able to relay data when needed.
Your words: “(Oh and balloons don’t gather dust and quit working!)”
That’s just it. Spirit and Oppy haven’t quite working. They’ve been going at it every day since I was in the sixth grade and now I’m a sophomore in High School!
Not dust nor wind nor dark of night… and you can buy posters about them in the gift shop at the United Nations in New York City. Which means that the UN loves them. ‘Nuff said.
WELL,
If you really want to compare apples to apples.
For the cost of the PROPOSED MRO mission back in 2003. You could have completely funded the ENTIRE Balloon Program for 30 years. JUST a portion of which was the development and operational testing of the ULDB balloon.
(Not counting going beyond the planned lifetime of the rovers). For this we got a picture of a martian sunset and tracks in the dust. Whoopee-dooo.
What time does voting end?
Voting ends at Midnight Eastern Standard Time.
The Co-Host
To all those that think the SPB vote was due to a bot… Sorry, just a VERY dedicated group of people that care about their work and are willing to do whatever it takes to get some recognition for their under-recognized program. Congrats MER on a good run, the rover’s are truly impressive, but our program has some quite impressive accomplishments too.
Perhaps the public is enamored with balloons because they stay on budget? Oh and by the way….. there have been articles on balloon science or balloon development in Nature magazine 5 times in as many years! Can other projects say as much. Talk about bang for the buck!Don’t sell them short, and don’t call them weather balloons. It’s world class science at a cost we can actually afford. Bravo to these inventive chaps.
when it’s all said and done apollo 11 will be there. so much was accomplished by brains and guts.
I wasn’t aware NASA had such a sophisticated effort in balloons. Go to the website http://www.csbf.nasa.gov.. Some of these behemoths are the size of football stadiums!!!! Wow. They claim to be able to fly up to 3650 kgs to 37 kms and keep it there for weeks. Egads. Where have these guys been all my career?
I’m surprised that MER didn’t make it. There were a couple others; what about the Clementine vs. X-29…what’s up with that???
Hey what’s with the Edge SNUB of all things everyday technologies, NO Communication ( Echo, Telstar to Galaxy25), weather (Tiros to GOES) or GPS satellites? I blame it on the ” Main Stream Media” which NASA EDGE has become. Just kidding,
My Final Four are: Apollo-11, Viking, Voyager and Orion.
To make sure your vote counts, click on the mission of your choice, click on the arrow in the yellow box beside “info”, make sure your mission moves down to the next bracket. Do this for as many missions as you wish to vote for. Then submit your vote….
ya if they have great determination with a good luck, they can beat aura