The engines that blasted the moon-landing mission of 1969, burned and fell into the Atlantic

Agencies

Posted On Friday, March 30, 2012 at 03:22:12 AM

The F-1 engines of Apollo 11 were responsible for Neil Armstrong landing on the moon

Seattle: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos claims he has located the long-submerged F-1 engines that blasted Apollo 11 into space on its historic 1969 mission to the moon.

In a blog post, the 48-year-old said that using advanced sonar scanning the five engines were found 14,000 ft on the Atlantic’s seabed. The billionaire bookseller and space-flight enthusiast now plans to recover one or more so that they can be put on public display.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

Apollo 11 carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on the first moon-landing mission in 1969.

Bezos’ announcement comes days after film director James Cameron succeeded in his own deep-sea expedition, reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on the planet.

“I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on TV, and without doubt it was a big contributor to my passion for science and exploration,” BBC quoted him as writing.

“I’m excited to report that the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below. We’re making plans to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor,” Bezos wrote. “We don’t know yet what condition these engines might be in – they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for over 40 years. But they’re made of tough stuff, so we’ll see,” Bezos wrote.

Bezos said he planned to ask NASA – which still owns the rockets – for permission to display one in the Museum of Flight in his home city of Seattle.

The Apollo 11 is Bezos’ second space-centred project. Blue Origin, his spaceflight company partially funded by NASA, is developing a commercial spaceship capable of flying people to and from the Earth’s orbit.

The apollo 11 enginesThe F-1 engines (S-IC in pic) were used on the Saturn V rocket that carried the Apollo 11 landing module out of the atmosphere in 1969. They burned for a few minutes before separating from the second stage module and falling into the Atlantic.

The five 12-foot engines boasted 32 mn horsepower and burned 6,000lb (2,720 kg) of rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen per second. Over 40 years later, the Saturn V remains the largest and most powerful engine ever built, according to space.com.

Posted in: World