A lot of Bull-**** is being propagated in this thread.
My few cents ...
1. Regarding Moon Landing. Moon landing was probably the biggest achievement of mankind as a whole. To be-little it is a crime against humanity as a whole because it is the ONLY achievement in thousands of years of human civilization which gives us hope against all odd. USA could have deceived every single human on the face of this planet, but US could have never deceived USSR which was its competition and was way way ahead in the race when the race started. USSR never objected that moon landing was fake, they are themselves the biggest witness of their defeat in moon race.
2. F22 is technological marvel. F22 has brought together possibly as must futuristic technology as the space shuttle. Its not just a plane, its a dream come true for USA, for making a tech leap so far ahead of other nations, that even after 20 years, no nation in the world is near enough to combine as much tech advances as US did in the 80s & 90s.
3. F22 R&D. USA is not only benefiting from the tangible existence of F22s in its arsenal but more importantly the knowledge it gained from the project itself. Thanks to F22, USA doesn't need any considerable R&D for its F35 project, and the AESA radar concepts developed are now being trickeled down to F35, F18, F15 and even to F16s. Its a moon-race moment, where the actual task of putting a man on the moon was worth less than the technology that got invented just because of the sheer effort put into realizing a dream that once seemed impossible.
4. Weather affects on F22. Does any one know why Challenger blew-up/failed? It was because of the weather on the day of its launch. Dear weather is possibly the biggest threat to military machines in peace time. Pakistan rejected Abrams because it couldn't handle heat and dust better than counterpart Chinese and Russian technology, India criticized Arjun because it failed in 50C temperatures, Chinese KJ2000 crashed because of icing on wings because of cold temperatures so on and so forth. Do you know that Heli Engines are not stopped when they go for missions in Siachen, because they cant restart engines in such a cold environment. Weather is a *****, probably not as much for the rug-tag Sukois, Migs, Mirages and F15/16s of 70s era origin, but for delicately built "Sophisticated Arsenal" of modern era, it packs a punishment as swear as going through gun-fire. And believe me, going though rain at (close to) super-sonic speeds in rain as destructive to F22 as it for any other craft with RAM coating.
5. Rest of the World. Rest of the world is still trying to figure out heads-and-tails of 5th generation technology for better part of a generation, and ,might I add, without any luck. Their is NOT a single stealth fighter in operation, FOC, IOC or even prototype state in entire world except F22, F35, and B2 (F117 is retired). USA is so far ahead that most nations have already given up the race and joined in with US to be party to success when F35 project succeeds in attaining its objectives, and almost a decade has passed since JSF project was launched and still its incomplete. Russia matched USA eye for eye till it lost the moon race, still it was ahead in launching Mir, and develop the safest satellite launch platforms, but why is Russia so far behind in stealth tech? It is because Russia and Rest of world is not behind, rather USA is soooo far ahead that its been 20 years and still no match for stealth tech from anyone else. And to achieve this, USA had to pay through its teeth to master a tech which sucked up almost a 100 billion $, and now people think its a waste.
Gambit, I know you can never prove your point to the people who don't have insight into what a technological marvel F22 proved out to be.
Regards,
Sapper