NASA's biggest worry right now: What if something goes wrong with the Webb telescope?

Chris.B:
How does an impoverished country, so deeply in debt, like the USA, manage
such costly exercises?

Impoverished? Really? I should get out more.

The U.S. is an expensive country to maintain; it requires--and has--the
world's most extensive and deepest infrastructure *by far*. In WW II
both Germany and Japan fatally underestimated our infrastructure by a
huge factor and, apparently, failed to understand that it was
invulnerable to their military forces.

Let's compare the U.S. to a small country chosen at random. Denmark,
for example. The U.S. has 77 times as many motorway miles as Denmark.
Public debt in the U.S. is $57,000 per capita, 98% of GDP. In Denmark
it is $86,000 per capita, 163% of GDP. Who has the debt?

Luxembourg, said to be the "wealthiest of all countries," has a public
debt amounting to nearly $7 million per capita.

Wealthy Germany has 1/10 the motorways the U.S. has, and public debt is
148% of GDP.

Other countries with per capita public debt exceeding that of the U.S.
include the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland,
Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Norway
(twice that of the U.S.); Finland; Qatar; Malta; Iceland...

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm