o make sure it didn't land on something and damage it, they said. Nudge nudge, wink wink....Is the press describing the area that might have been contaminated had it crashed? It's an area the size of 2 football fields.
I say "go USA!" All sorts of people test all sorts of stuff all the time. It would be kinda nice for more of us to get a chance to escape this gravity well as a test-run before we truly depart this mortal coil, and that won't happen unless people test and improve stuff. So test away.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1