Its not a matter of what's "secret" in space. There is no secret that I know of, except one. In space, if "We The People" were to get there, we'd find that government would have little to no say in our lives (after the initial colonization movement of course). Its what I think is called Frontier Situation or something like that. At the edge of a frontier there is no controling government authority, there is only strong willed, independent, self-reliant explorers and colonists. The very type of person that governments have always hated.
NASA is much like the ancient Chinese explorers who searched around a bit for their Emperors. They were government financed, of course, and each journey away from China was a Glorious event, as were their return. Of course, nothing ever came of these journeys, since they were for the Glory of the Empire (or whatever they referred to themselves as), as opposed to journey's for trade and profit. History rewarded those who journey for profit, hence the existance of America. Those who journey for government glory show no return, no future and no interest in having your or I along for the ride.
Note how these people are going to launch this thing. From a sub in the middle of the ocean, almost like it was a covert operation or something. More power to them, and I hope they make lots of dough doing it.
My guess is the sub launch is the cheapest option. It's a Russian sub and they've been selling off a lot of their old military capability. The first launch I mentioned was also from a Russian sub and it failed because of the upper stage seperation failure. You get what you pay for I guess. I wish them all the luck in the world however.