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Long thought to be lost forever on the ocean floor, massive engines that launched astronauts to the moon more than 40 years ago have been recovered by a private expedition led by the founder of Amazon.com.
"We found so much," said Jeff Bezos, the online retailer's CEO, in an update posted Wednesday (March 20) on the Bezos Expeditions website. "We have seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 enginesthat tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program."
When NASA's mighty Saturn V rockets were launched on missions to Earth orbit and the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the five F-1 engines that powered each of the boosters' first stages dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and sank to the seafloor. There they were expected to remain, discarded forever.
Then, almost exactly one year ago, Bezos announced his private — and until then, secret — expedition had located what they believed to be theengines from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that began the journey to land the first humans on the moon. [Apollo Rocket Engines Recovered by Jeff Bezos (Photos)]
"Nearly one year ago, Jeff Bezos shared with us his plans to recover F-1 engines," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a statement that was released Wednesday. "We share the excitement expressed by Jeff and his team in announcing the recovery of two of the powerful Saturn V first-stage engines from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."
http://news.yahoo.com/apollo-moon-rocket-engines-raised-seafloor-amazon-ceo-190956909.html
I can only wish for the kind of money that would allow me to do this kind of stuff.
That's cool! Thanks for linking. Just watched "For All mankind" last night on TCM - documentary on the Apollo missions made in 1989. Awe inspiring stuff....
Interesting. I wonder what inspired him to chase those down? Lots of stuff on the sea floor to look for and he goes looking for old rocket boosters.