[chasd00]

It has a lot to do with how much of a craftsman you are too. The really good people in the high power rocketry hobby can get above 100k feet on a budget of maybe $3-4k

These rockets are almost always 2 stage designs. The most expensive parts are the motors and electronics. Typically, you'll have redundant flight controllers for the booster and sustainer plus GPS/radio trackers to find them once the rocket eventually lands.

They aren't much different than the typical little hobby shop rockets just bigger and faster. The ones i've seen were maybe 8-10' tall, hand rolled carbon or fiberglass fuselages, and peak at around Mach 3.

[amenghra]

https://youtu.be/sQw_C5KLhFM is fun to watch. There’s more info here https://ddeville.com/derek/Qu8k.html

I don’t think they spent too much money, but they had access to all the right tools as part of their day job.