Sometimes you build ships and sometimes you build things to ship the ships. One of the big costs for the upcoming Tandem flight is the truck to get it to the launch site. In spite of the ability to breaking half it still takes a pretty large truck to move it in spite of it only weighing sixty pounds. We looked at conventional flat bed trailers, however the ones large enough are too heavy to pull with van of any of the recovery vehicles.
The solution was to buy a used long sailboat trailer and deck it with lightweight hollow core panels. The decking is on, now we need to make a ramp and tie down points. In addition to use for the Tandem the trailer will be used to get the Sky Pup chase plane to the airport. The whole cost? About $600. This compares well against the $1,200 for one time use truck rental.
With a frugal example, such as the do-it-yourself trailer, I am encouraged to believe we will achieve cheap access to orbit. Or, you could get a government grant and buy the flatbed. However, the weight of the red tape would weigh down the Tandem. To space on the wings of a greenback dollar… if we all contribute..
You whisper the truth, Balloon Whisperer.
This *could* be seen as a sign of this company’s amateur-ish and unprofessional methods. But when you think about it, our “established” methods for reaching space have not changed for nearly half a century. As JP Aerospace demonstrates, sucess and professionalism does not require excessive spending. This is a $600 “Crawler”, in a manner of speaking