Head to Popular Mechanics to see the official timeline of the crash. [Popular Mechanics]

Unlike other aircraft fuel efforts, like hydrogen-fueled planes or vodka with Red Bull, the synthetic fuel used in the B-1B is actually derived from natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process. The 50% synthetic fuel and 50% petroleum gases mixture, however, is as capable as regular fuel, feeding with ease the B-1B's four General Electric F101-GE-102 augmented turbofans and pushing the variable sweep-winged bomber at Mach 1.25 to its objective, where it can launch AGM-69A short-range nuclear missiles, drop 24 Mk84 bombs or spread a lot of good will and clean air.

According to the USAF, the fuel is still under test after trying it successfully in this B-1B and the subsonic B-52 Stratofortress. They are aiming "to have every aircraft using synthetic fuel blends by 2011," according to Maj. Don Rhymer from the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification Office. My favorite quote, however, comes from Captain Rick Fournier, the B-1B commander:

It's great to be part of an Air Force initiative that is also helping the environment, Captain Fournier said. "Using a fuel that is cheaper and cleaner ... what could be better?"

Rick, if Senator McCarthy was still around, you would be in jail by now. Damn you hippies in the military! Damn you! [Military.com, Boeing and Wikipedia]

The B-2 Spirit follows the same ideas pioneered by John Knudsen Northrop, who founded Northrop to pursue his flying wing designs, and the Nazi Horten Ho-IX, one of the most advanced planes at its time, designed by the Horten brothers.

The Ho-IX, also called Gotha Go 229 or Ho 229, took off for the first time in 1944 and was the only plane to meet Luftwaffe's chief, frustrated transvestite and absolute nutter Hermann Göring 1000-1000-1000 performance standards: the Horten was capable of transporting 1,000 kilograms of bombs (2,200 lb) over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) at 1,000 kilometers an hour.

Fortunately, it never reached production and most airframes were destroyed by US forces to avoid the Soviets getting their paws all over them. The U.S. VIII Corps of General Patton's Third Army captured one, however, and its low-drag, no-unnecessary surfaces live now in the B-2.

Unlike the experimental Horten and the flying wing designs that Northrop designed in the 40s (like 1948's Northrop YB-49, a jet-based variation of the 1946's YB-35 strategic bomber) the Spirit became fully operational.

The B-2 bombers are amazingly efficient: like its 20 sister vessels still in service, the Air Vehicle-12 Spirit of Kansas was capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear bombs to any target around the world in a few hours, with just one refueling. Powered by four General Electric F118-GE-100 turbofans capable of 17,300 pounds of thrust each, the aircraft can reach 410 knots (470mph) at a maximum altitude of 50,000 feet.

Another advantage of its simple design —coupled with its radar-absorbing coating, called Alternate High-Frequency Material—is that their radar profile is extremely low. Coupled with its operational altitude, this make them extremely hard to detect and shoot down. That's the reason why this crash, with no known reasons yet, is so exceptional. That and the effect of watching $1.2 billion dollars disappearing in an crater in a concrete runway.

According to the Air Force, an investigation is currently under way about why the Spirit of Kansas went to Oz at Guam. But don't worry, taxpayers, I'm sure you will get a cool 3D simulation of how it all happened from the Wizard in Chief, General Dorothy and Commander Toto, at the Pentagon. [Military.com, Ho-XI at Wikipedia, Jack Northrop at Wikipedia, Air Force — Main photo by Bobbi Garcia for the AFFTC]