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Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

"Americans dominate space" is the most American sentence I've read in a while. Imagine that, a few humans from a little corner of the universe dominating space!

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"Americans dominate the space industry" is presumably what they meant, and not inaccurate. On the other hand, even the American space industry uses metric.

Hubble wasn't so sure.

Nor was Mars Polar Lander – the most likely cause of its loss was a mistake in units that resulted in it using too short a deceleration burn as it prepared to land, meaning it hit the surface far faster than intended (IIRC we don't know for sure if it impacted in one piece, broke apart during descent). Tabloid headlines of the time dubbed the mission as a “close encounter of the thud kind”.

Not a consequence of units used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Flawed_...

It's space in the SV context, i.e. the competitive arena or market. Americans dominate the space space.

The EU was dominating space for around twenty years or so, but that has long passed and at this rate will never come again. The ESA and Arianespace dropped the ball so badly, books will be written about it.

Thanks to Starlink, something like 70% of the 7500 satellites orbit Earth are American. Or course by mass, nature still wins by a landslide, but as always, it's all in how in count things.

Space is pretty big. Is it fair to say that the USA dominates up to, say, Earth's Ionosphere?

Earth orbit is the only useful part of space.

There are 31 extra-planetary human objects/, 19 of which are American, and 12 are Japanese/Soviet/European/Chinese/Indian, so maybe a bit further than the ionosphere?

Americans: we dominate space and are the WORLD champions of football.

The thing I love best about jokes like this is that it changes based on your perspective.

Americans reading this: “f—- yeah, we do!” Upvote!

Non-Americans reading this: “lmao perfect parody of an American!” Upvote!

For clarity, Americans claim the WORLD champions of baseball. The championship series is called the World Series. In American football, it's just called the Super Bowl.

You might as well complain about the name of the World Cup, since it’s also only teams from Earth.

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