Legato wrote:
It's a two stage burn then? With H2O2 and platinum and the resulting O2 and
kerosine burning?


Yeah, or whatever other fuel you want to use.
This all got started by a German scientist named Dr. Hellmuth Walter
before WW II; he got very enthused by what you could do with hydrogen
peroxide to power things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellmuth_Walter
He started with simple engines that just decomposed H202 into oxygen and
superheated steam, then moved on to ones that added fuel to the hot
oxygen-rich exhaust to burn and create more thrust.
There's a detailed and illustrated overview of his rocket work he
http://www.walter-rockets.i12.com/
After the war, the British were very taken with the technology and used
to to power several rocket and missile designs including the Black Arrow
space launcher and Blue Steel cruise missile.
The turbopump on the V-2 missile was powered by steam generated by
decomposing H2O2, and the present day Russian Soyuz booster still uses
that means to drive the turbopumps in its core stage and four strap-on
boosters.
Although decomposition of H2O2 into steam and oxygen is simple to do for
rocket propulsion, it's very limited in its specific impulse unless you
then add fuel to burn with the hot oxygen, so you would end up with a
very large rocket with very limited abilities if you tried to power it
with just H2O2.
One of the advantages you get if you mix fuel with the steam is that the
steam is hot enough to ignite the fuel on contact.
In the Me-163 rocket fighter engine, the two propellants were hypergolic
and would ignite on contact even at room temperature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Stoff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-Stoff

Pat