OK people, it's time to take pride in the good ol US of A again

[mac]

What a week. We're leading, I think, in medals at the olympics, and the really big thing to puff up our chests, is the latest Mars rover.No matter what your political affiliation or views on government, this was and is one of the most spectular engineering feats I have ever witnessed. They first shot this thing up on a rocket and aimed at a point in space where Mars would be in 10 months. They then hit the bullseye on the landing. Man, that is engineering talent that no other country has. In fact no other country has ever made a successful Mars landing. One of our earlier rovers is still running around in another part of the planet 6 YEARS after its landing. In a way it's kind of sad. We pull off this amazing feat and congress cuts the shuttle and the NASA budget. Guess they need the money for all the people on food stamps.

 

[MEP001]

They first shot this thing up on a rocket and aimed at a point in space where Mars would be in 10 months. They then hit the bullseye on the landing.

I read an analogy that the accuracy of that landing is like throwing a basketball from New York and making a "nothing but net" shot in California...after the ball has orbited the Earth six times.

There are some home builders who are banding together and buying only USA-made building supplies to help support American businesses. One of them said that even though the nails from an American company cost a little more, they save over the cheap China-made ones that jam and damage their nail guns.

 

[bigleo48]

The Mars landing and what will come from it is amazing! Canada has contributed some testing devices that will be able to determine the composition of sample taken from the ground. One of them is a laser that burns the rock, creating a dust cloud that the rover collects and analyses...cool!

As far as the medals go...Comparing to China, USAs 63 is like China having over 600 medals with a population 10x the US...so IMHO, China is not doing that well.