The Senate voted Tuesday to terminate further production of USAF’s topline F-22 fighter jets, giving President Barack Obama a major spending victory and siding with the Pentagon’s desire for smaller jets better suited to 21st-century wars.

F-22 supporters complained the action would be a blow to long-term national defense and cost thousands of jobs in the middle of the recession.

Gates and other Pentagon officials want to put more emphasis on the next-generation F-35 Lightning that would be used primarily to attack targets in the ground and would replace the F-16 and USAF’s aging fleet of A-10’s. The Air Force plans to buy more than 1,700 F-35’s, which are being produced in small numbers for testing purposes.

The defense bill has money to build 30 F-35s.

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One of China’s fighter bombers crashed during the China-Russia Peace Mission 2009 joint military exercise on the morning of July 19. The latest information shows that the two pilots of the “Flying Leopard” fighter bomber have died.

Developed by Xi’an Aircraft Industry Company, the “Flying Leopard,” also known as the FBC-1, is a medium-sized fighter bomber. China started to independently design and produce them in the 1980s.

The fighter bombers also participated in the China-Russia Peace Mission 2007 anti-terrorism joint military exercise in Russia.

Defense Sec. Robert Gates announced that the size of the Army is being increased temporarily by 22,000 soldiers to help meet the needs of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other missions around the world.

This is the second time since 2007 that the military has determined it doesn’t have a large enough force. Gates had already increased the size of the Army and Marine Corps shortly after taking the Pentagon job.

The Army currently has a total troop strength of 547,000.

Gates said he would not seek additional money for the extra troops in the 2009 and 2010 fiscal year budgets.

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It’s been 4 decades since Niel Armstrong made his “giant leap for mankind.” After that successful moment, astronauts in the US space program have gone no farther.

On July 20, 1969, the first footsteps on the moon — made by Armstrong , the mission known as Apollo 11— came 3½ years before the last ones. Since then, astronauts have been stuck close to the Earth, mostly circling a few hundred miles overhead in a spacecraft that’s little more than a glorified cargo truck.

So now what?

That question preoccupies NASA and worries the Obama administration. The president said in March that NASA is beset by “a sense of drift.” Even some of the men who once walked on the moon are divided on how to proceed. Options could include going back to the moon, landing on an asteroid, shooting for Mars or even ending human exploration of space altogether.

That sounds neat however, the next big question is “Will there be a budget for such mission?”