It will suddenly make Venezuela and its leadership seem like
such a wonderful country, judging by the reaction of some
people in this forum to China's sending a few soldiers into orbit.

Just as I am sure when the USSR was doing all its space feats
in the 1950s and 1960s, many of which were little more than
propoganda stunts, a lot of people around the globe equated
technological superiority with moral superiority. Seems that
trick still works today.

Then again, sometimes all that is really needed is an anti-American
bias and folks would go with the Devil himself.

I am not fond of what Bush and his cronies have done in the
last eight years, but bashing the whole country just because
of them is wrong. That is why we have a democracy so our
leaders aren't in power for life, which is not the case with most
other countries (less than 30% are even nominally democratic,
and this is the 21st Century).