Mars Madness – Walt Hickey

Mars Madness

Mars is fascinating, so fascinating that FiveThirtyEight is spending a whole month just writing about it. Given that it’s March Madness — and given humanity’s longstanding tradition of hurling robots and cameras at Mars with varying degrees of success, you know, like a free throw — we wanted to figure out the winner of the ultimate Martian bracket.

Seeds and such come later, but for now, merely select the cooler Mars mission or landmark:

Which is the cooler mission or landmark?

Battle: : Mars

Phobos 2 Lander — stationary platform (1988)

Orbiter’s computer malfunctioned just before deploying lander to Phobos.

Phobos 2 Orbiter (1988)

Successfully orbited Mars for two months, then malfunctioned before landers were deployed.