March Madness “Bracket Challenge” has been announced by X in partnership with Uber Eats where grand prize is trip to Mars on one of the Elon Musk yet to be built rocket ships. Now Basketball fans can compete for a chance to win trip to Mars on SpaceX’s Starship vehicle or $100,000 in cash prize.
The competition will start at 3:00 pm PST on Sunday March 16, 2025 and end on 20th March, 2025, 8:00 A.M PST. Fans will be able to submit their tournament brackets and track its progress as the NCAA Tournament unfolds. Live leaderboards would keep the excitement buzzing all month and show who dominated in real time.
On top of it, X is adding fantasy games for extra thrills besides sharing predictions and sparking conversations with fellow fans. The grand prize for this competition is trip to Mars on SpaceX Starship vehicle or $250,000, chance to train like SpaceX astronaut for a day, VIP viewing of Starship launch, one year of free residential Starlink service and sending personal item of choice to space on a Falcon 9 launch.
SpaceX is being developed as a fully reusable transportation system which means that both vehicle and rocket would be able to return to the ground for additional missions. In the coming years, Starship will be playing an important role in deep-space expedition as NASA is looking to return to moon ahead of crewed voyages to Mars.
Starship’s recent demonstrations just two which were conducted in 2025 have unfortunately met explosions. In both cases, the upper stage of the vehicle where cargo and astronauts ride came apart just few minutes into the flight. SpaceX which launches its Starship from South Texas has ow been working with the Federal Aviation Administration for investigating the second consecutive mishap which occurred on March 6.
The first explosion had occurred due to series of propellant leaks and fires in the aft section of the vehicle which caused all but one of the Starship engines to execute controlled shut down sequences. This had led to communication breakdown and the vehicle to trigger its own self destruction.
Though Starship did not explode in every iteration but the next-gen is yet to reach orbit on any of its eight unscrewed flight tests beginning from 2023.
If we consider the positive aspect, rocket booster of the spacecraft has managed to navigate back to launch pad on three separate occasions including in both tests of 2025. The maneuver which got completed in October involved SpaceX catching the booster with giant mechanical arms known as chopsticks.
Starship which is considered to be the most powerful launch vehicle to be developed is a huge spacecraft composed of both 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and 171-foor upper stage vehicle. With more than 400 total feet in height, Starship overshadows Falcon 9 rocket which is one of the world’s most active rocket and stands at around 230 feet.
This proves why people value Elon Musk so much because whichever project he has been associated with has defied expectation or improved what is possible with technologies. The best part is that people still take his words seriously and trust his grand vision which can take shape as most of his projects are based on his imagination and are built on top of conceptual ideas.
Take for example, Elon has been promising self-driving cars for more than ten years now but it has still not taken shape but all this has also not stopped Musk from creating a premise that if these cars get launched then tesla can facilitate robot taxis and generate passive income for Tesla owners.
For more details, check details here.
