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I'm guessing you already know this, but speculation is that it's Rocket Lab's patented thixotropic monopropellant, VLM, developed when they were working on prop

I'm guessing you already know this, but speculation is that it's Rocket Lab's patented thixotropic monopropellant, VLM, developed when they were working on propulsion tech for missiles and sounding rockets, before they started Electron https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLab/comments/7sg0vn/rocket_lab_launch_also_tested_new_kick_stage/dt4jegj/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLab/comments/7sg0vn/rocket_la...

igravious 9y ago
You know it'd be great if governments around the world started a patent pool of space-related tech in order to kick start the Space Age.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I'm usually pretty supportive of government involvement, when it comes to fixing up the failures of the market. But for now, I think government should stay away from space industry. The market there isn't broken (yet). Nobody is preventing competition through holding critical pieces of technology; companies are innovating different ways to reduce launch costs and increase reliability. The overall atmosphere is that of friendly competition towards the same goal, not cut-throat business. Governments don't have much to fix there. (Some funding and less strings attached would be nice, though. For instance, NASA could be orders of magnitude more useful if the US Congress would stop micromanaging them and treating them as a large jobs program.) Space Age is happening by itself, it's almost at the critical mass now - I hope nobody tries to interrupt that.
  - simonh 9y ago
    It depends what you mean by 'stay away'. If you mean in the form of interfering by skewing the commercial incentives, yes ok, but we're nowhere near the point where current space technology development can survive without government support. I don't mean in the form of subsidies, those can be retired, but in the form of investment and contracts for commercial services. SpaceX launch manifest would collapse without NASA contracts and in fact the company wouldn't exist in anything like it's current form without them. The military contracts they're getting are very valuable too. There has been talk recently, in military and security circles, that reusable rocket technology could give the US a decade or more lead over their rivals, in terms of technology and space infrastructure. It's possible the military and security contracts SpaceX are starting to get are part of a deliberate effort to funnel funds into this new technology. You could view that as interference, but equally you could view it as a well funded client supporting a supplier, much in the way Apple funnels funds into suppliers to bootstrap new technology for their products.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Yeah, I meant heavy-handed skewing of incentives. Government contracts are absolutely crucial at this point, I agree.
discordance 9y ago
'unspecified green stuff' probably means it's peroxide monopropellent

igravious 9y ago

You know it'd be great if governments around the world started a patent pool of space-related tech in order to kick start the Space Age.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
I'm usually pretty supportive of government involvement, when it comes to fixing up the failures of the market. But for now, I think government should stay away from space industry. The market there isn't broken (yet). Nobody is preventing competition through holding critical pieces of technology; companies are innovating different ways to reduce launch costs and increase reliability. The overall atmosphere is that of friendly competition towards the same goal, not cut-throat business. Governments don't have much to fix there. (Some funding and less strings attached would be nice, though. For instance, NASA could be orders of magnitude more useful if the US Congress would stop micromanaging them and treating them as a large jobs program.) Space Age is happening by itself, it's almost at the critical mass now - I hope nobody tries to interrupt that.
- simonh 9y ago
  It depends what you mean by 'stay away'. If you mean in the form of interfering by skewing the commercial incentives, yes ok, but we're nowhere near the point where current space technology development can survive without government support. I don't mean in the form of subsidies, those can be retired, but in the form of investment and contracts for commercial services. SpaceX launch manifest would collapse without NASA contracts and in fact the company wouldn't exist in anything like it's current form without them. The military contracts they're getting are very valuable too. There has been talk recently, in military and security circles, that reusable rocket technology could give the US a decade or more lead over their rivals, in terms of technology and space infrastructure. It's possible the military and security contracts SpaceX are starting to get are part of a deliberate effort to funnel funds into this new technology. You could view that as interference, but equally you could view it as a well funded client supporting a supplier, much in the way Apple funnels funds into suppliers to bootstrap new technology for their products.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Yeah, I meant heavy-handed skewing of incentives. Government contracts are absolutely crucial at this point, I agree.

discordance 9y ago

'unspecified green stuff' probably means it's peroxide monopropellent