A lot of the arguments here, whether for or against the idea that this achievement 'belongs' to the U.S., miss an important point.
Not everyone working on past, current and future Mars Exploration Programs is an American citizen. The funding may be from the U.S., but the individual contributions at NASA come from all over the world.
To name just three, there's Fernando Abilleira, Spain (trajectory analyst); Nathalie Cabrol, France (planetary geologist); and Firouz Naderi, Iran (manager of the Mars Exploration Program). There's a huge list of people, you should check it out: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/programmissions/people/
Not everyone working on past, current and future Mars Exploration Programs is an American citizen. The funding may be from the U.S., but the individual contributions at NASA come from all over the world.
To name just three, there's Fernando Abilleira, Spain (trajectory analyst); Nathalie Cabrol, France (planetary geologist); and Firouz Naderi, Iran (manager of the Mars Exploration Program). There's a huge list of people, you should check it out: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/programmissions/people/