In theory there could be a whole new level of military technology based in low orbit, as you suggest.  One impediment to this is that there is a UN treaty on the peaceful uses of outer space, signed by the US, which prohibits any militarization of space.  By treaty, space is reserved exclusively for peaceful uses (surveillance satellites seem to be acceptable despite their obvious military application - they have peaceful applications as well, such as resource management or weather prediction).  Of  course, if the US was truly determined to develop space-based weapons systems, treaties can be broken.  Indeed, the US could even resign from the UN and expel it from its current headquarters in New York, should the US be so inclined, thus rendering all UN treaties inapplicable to the US.  That day may come, although it would be a very drastic move.  In the end, the US will do whatever it feels it needs to do in order to protect itself, and the global security situation seems to be getting worse, not better.  Space-based weapons systems might be just the thing.

However, if, as the above write-up indicates, the US is really expecting military conflicts with China and Iran, I think that global politics are moving in an extremely dangerous direction.  It would probably be better to figure out ways to preserve peace rather than planning new wars.  We just narrowly squeaked through the Cold War without falling victim to global nuclear annihilation, and now we are anticipating new confrontations with China, also a nuclear power, and Iran, which may soon become a nuclear power.  While I would not advocate capitulation, I would still prefer to see peaceful resolutions of conflicts.  The next war may be WW III, and there may not be many survivors.  

I would agree that the main-line fighter plane is close to obsolescence due to being overtaken by missile technology.  The main caveat would be that the only country which appears to be doing intensive missile research is the US, and that the US seems to be banking on main-line fighters and have abandoned SAMs as a instrument of air power, end even its ATA missiles have abandoned trying to project power at distance like the Phoneix missile tried to do.

Air superiority is the one aspect that makes the rest of the military might tick and while specific plane types have had their failures, overall it's a stable sector that we've got figured out so I don't have a problem making sure we're set long term there. Additionally, I don't necessarily feel comfortable with that 6x number. While we have air superiority our theory of fewer but higher quality planes has never really been tested on a large scale. In fact, it was nazi germany's strategy and look where it got them. It's already known that if China attempted to assert air power, it would use Russia's lots of cheap fighter planes strategy and they'd have lots. So for our strategy to even have a hope of working, we need to actually execute the basic part, having the most bad ass planes around.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

What makes the F-117 a failed system?  Inquiring minds want to know, because the upthread link about it mentions rack upon rack of success for that fugly aircraft.  I doesn't even mention that the Serbs figured out how to shoot them down, but even then, one expects a loss or two.  

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