Having just seen 2001 on dvd again, especially the scenes from the Moon base it made me wonder. What is the most awesome machine built by man?
'nuff said.
My vote is with Mr. Peabody, his boy Sherman, and the Wayback Machine.
Imagine the ability to undo stupid things you’d said the night before, unsleep with certain people, not take crappy jobs, unwreck the car, and pass up on stock that tanks in 6 months.
Plymouth Superbird. Make mine yellow with a black stripe on the tail. Michael Schumacher’s car would be nice to have, too.
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
Telomere666 welcome to the boards, good call on the Survival Research Laboritories. I’ve seen them and though maybe not quite the most awesome machines ever, they could well be amongst the loudest.
I thought of nuclear accelerators like Cern, but though they are pretty gigantic they are also fairly boring as far as machines go. A good JCB back hoe trencher would be more awesome for me. I think an aircraft carrier might be a good choice, though it could be argued that it is really a set of machines on a big boat. The mobile shuttle carrying tracked behemoth from NASA must also be in the running.
The Antykthera Device; not a particularly impressive object by today’s standards, but (whatever it is, regardless of hype and speculation) astounding that this was built nearly 2000 years ago.
Either:
A tie between the 1st generation Soytz spacecraft and the Eagle module on Apollo 11.
Or:
The Hello Kitty Vibrator. Of course, it may have been designed by a woman, but I think it still qualifies.
Ohh!
Forgot Charles Babbage’s computing machine. Wasn’t actually built, but parts of it has been done with modern technology, and I’ve heard they worked like a charm.
I think the Mars Sojourner is pretty awesome.
So is the Arecibo radio telescope.
If they ever get the Freedom Ship built it may eclipse everything built so far.
Rabid_Squirrel Surely the Hitachi Magic Wand is more awesome than the Hello Kitty Vibrator.
I think it’s quite obviously the Sybian. 
Following the Charles Babbage concept:
There’s a group out there called the Long Now Foundation who is working on a mechanical clock that will last 10,000 years with zero maintenance, automatically synchronizing itself with the sun and showing various star map kind of things.
The fellow who thought this all up gave a really cool talk at the JavaOne conference a few years back. Check out the transcript – he goes into some neat details about fancy quirks one needs to concern onesself with over 10,000 years such as analemmas and so forth.
The SR-71 Blackbird, Space Shuttle, and Apollo Lunar Module come to mind.
Also the artificial heart.
The electric nose hair trimmer.
You can use it on noses and ears!
Ingenious!
hmm-
mechanical calculators. I can’t remember where the thread on these was.
Honda’s humanoid robots- The new model can do some acrobatics and martial arts moves.
Genghis, and Attila- Remember the cockroach episode of X Files? The scientist with the robotic cockroaches was based on an actual person. Deciding that all the AI research focusing on creating a human level inteligence was foolish, he started with the basics. The result is bug robots who act like real bugs.
I’d call it a tie between the Hindenburg and the Boeing 747.
I saw a program once on tunnel boring machines and these things are truly awesome. They bore, excavate and line the tunnel in one operation. The largest one made has diameter of about 45 feet.Nipponia
The internal combustion engine!
I do believe it is this
I vote for The Internet.
Worldwide, instant, super-redundant communication, and pornography. Nothing more awesome than that.