| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket This classic book tells the story of liquid rocket fuel development https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... You'd think that you could mix any of a wide range of fuels with a wide range of oxidizers and get a good rocket fuel but it does not really work that way, most combinations are pretty awful, including the ethanol + O2 used in the V2. There was a time when there was interest in "storable" liquid propellants but once solid propellants reached this level of maturity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman those were obsolete. It is hard to beat H2+oxygen or hydrocarbons+oxygen if you pick the right hydrocarbons (rocket kerosene isn't quite the kerosene you use in a lamp) I'm not sure if ethylene is really that good of a rocket fuel. In the context of a space economy I see it as a "reactive carbon" substance which is easy to make other things out of, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene in the sense that glucose is reactive carbon you can build structural carbohydrates and all sorts of biological molecules out of. There is talk about SpaceX establishing a methane economy on Mars, methane is definitely an easy to synthesize rocket fuel but it not very reactive and not on the path to making other things you might want. |