[Space] budget

Adam Fritzler mid at zigamorph.net
Fri Jan 15 18:32:30 UTC 2010


On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Christie Dudley <longobord at gmail.com> wrote:

> Another question that came
> up... do we want to buy our own tank? We'd have to keep renting them

In practice, renting tanks is no big deal, and has the advantage that
you can, say, pick it up already filled on launch day and return it
that evening and never have to deal with it again, as well as reserve
(but not necessarily use) extra tanks as failure contingency. Renting
usually is quite nearly free.  Also you don't have to worry about the
tank being safe as it ages.

If you own your own, you'll have to wait for them to fill it, which
will likely have to be done on a weekday and take a few hours of
someone's time (who must have a vehicle capable of moving it and
storing it). These problems probably aren't huge if you have access to
a number of people with flexible schedules, but if you want to do a
launch with a couple people with 9-5 jobs, renting a tank the day of
launch is likely to be easier logistically.

However, owning your own regulator and other fittings is definitely
the way to go.  The 291 tanks from non-party-stores will not come with
anything appropriate for filling a balloon. You can rent those too but
you have the risk of every rented regulator you see being slightly
different and having to scramble for fittings on launch day.  This
expenditure shouldn't be more than 150$, and probably less than 100$.

asf.



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