Having experienced the pain of disillusion of the late 90s' "New Economy" of last century, we should look upon the technology and future more rationally.
Even today, after the bursting of the stock-market bubble, American venture-capital firms—which are in the business of betting on the future—dwarf the firms from all other nations.
During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster but did not impede the mission or the programme.
For the last 20 years from the end of the cold war through two burst bubbles in a single decade the US has been casting about for its next economic narrative.