The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, something NASA plays down because it represents one of the few things inspired by conservatives the White House was unable to shut down. That, and too many scientists can't be bothered with politics (so naturally politics bothers with them.)
The LRO has been in lunar orbit almost three years, longer than anything any human contraption has ever managed to keep in lunar orbit. It has returned to Earth more data than all the previous human deep space probes combined, several times over. Photographed nearly the entire Moon in high resolution, etc. etc. And its done more than just shoot pretty pictures (again, for the first time) of human artifacts. Long after the mission is completed, for at least a decade to come, investigators will be pouring over that pile of data.
And it was all done on-time, under budget.
This reproduction of a roughly 188 meter wide segment (between lines 18602 and 19053) of LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M168000580R may not be the best view of the Apollo 17 lunar module descent stage or the rover tracks and foot prints left behind by Cernan & Schmitt in 1972, still it was collected from an altitude of only 22.41 kilometers on August 14, 2011; LRO orbit 9892, official resolution 0.41 meters per pixel with an incidence angle of 45.17° From the post "LROC NAC August Close-Ups, Part 3," December 31, 2011 [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
All that being said, that's not saying much for a budget and debt wall. It's not even one brick in the Washington Monument, by comparison.
Want something not Space-related?
Tough one... A picture comes to mind. That of U.S. Navy personnel as the backdoor of a helicopter opens up after landing somewhere on Sumatra after the Boxing Day earthquake in 2005. In his arms is a box of rescue supplies, and on his face is genuine apprehension.
That made me proud, I guess. And believe it or not, the federal response to Katrina made me proud, considering the state and local breakdown, I just never bought the shameless feeding frenzy of the press.
All that sounds like a lot, but it's not much.
Our nation has become decadent, a self-perpetuating orthodoxy rather than the civilizing influence it started out being, because of the shared attitudes of out people.
Last night, while channel surfing, I noted that the documentary "Woodstock" was being replayed by VH1. Watching the clueless mudbathers descending into self-absorption, I recalled that weirdness happened just about the same time as the first moon landing, and the aftermath of Ted Kennedy's freestyle swim...
‘MENĒ, MENĒ, TEKĒL, UPHARSIN.’