Jeff Bezos To Retrieve Apollo 11 Rocket Engines

Hugh Pickens writes "AFP reports that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos plans to retrieve the F-1 engines that rocketed astronaut Neil Armstrong and his crew toward the moon in 1969. 'We're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor,' Bezos wrote in his blog at BezosExpeditions.com. '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 more than 40 years. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see.' Bezos wrote that he was five years old when Armstrong made history during the Apollo 11 mission by becoming the first person to set foot on the moon, and 'without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.' Bezos stressed that he is using private funds to try to raise the F-1 engines from their resting places 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, and that they remain the property of NASA. 'I imagine that NASA would decide to make it available to the Smithsonian (National Air and Space Museum) for all to see.' Bezos's efforts come just days after Titanic director James Cameron became the first person in 40 years to descend to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the ocean's deepest point, in a privately-funded expedition."

Comments

Evita's on the horizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please go back to decent central funding of scientific endeavour - particularly in space - rather than all this stupid pet projects from people who got lucky and have more money than sense? The Soviets dragged themselves from backwater feudal estate to technocratic superpower in 20 years - and China similarly - because they understood the value of education and science. They didn't think that "the market" would advance them.

Re:Evita's on the horizon

[trongey]

Money is only wasted if you throw it in a pile and burn it. If it gets spent on something, regardless of how silly, then it stays in circulation; somebody will be using it to buy groceries, pay the mortgage, take his kids to the doctor, etc. A bunch of people will be employed on this project, and a bunch of companies will be selling goods and services. This is exactly the kind of stuff we want rich people to be doing with their money.

Re:Evita's on the horizon

[Megane]

Why must the only reason to recover it be to reverse-engineer it? (Besides, we already have projects like the J2X for re-mainstreaming Saturn V technlogy.) Why must you ignore the possibility that the very act of recovering this historical object doesn't in itself advance science through developing the technology to recover it? James Cameron's "voyage to the bottom of the sea" improved deep-diving technology sufficiently that I'm sure more people will go down there in the next few years.

Re:Evita's on the horizon

[fast turtle]

Well there's the science angle of those engines seeing as how they were actually launched raising the questions of how the heat affected them, plus what affect did splash down have on them along with the affect of salt water on the hot/cold components. What kind of corrosion has the metal suffered over time? All sorts of questions like that are then able to be asked.

To me, the inability to even think of questions to be asked/ivestigated proves just how well the educational system in the United States is reaching the goal of no-one being able to think for themselves as both the government and corps simply want consumers that are as dumb as rocks. No wonder Science has pretty much died in the States though we still have a few that are innovating but they're getting locked out by Patents and such as quickly as possible.

Re:Evita's on the horizon

[es330td]

How about the tools used to create the pyramids?

I'm pretty sure Ra took those with him when he went through the Stargate.

After retrieving the Apollo 11 rocket engines...

[stoofa]

Most customers:

• Raised the Titanic
• Discovered Atlantis

Re:The good and bad side of capitalism.

[Nutria]

The bad side: it puts money in the hands of the few.

As opposed to communism, which (in reality not theory) puts money in the hands of the... few?

Re:Whose Property Legally?

[JazzHarper]

No. Under admiralty law, the objects remain the property of the original owner forever, unless that owner has formally abandoned claim to them. The salvor may claim a reward for recovering the property, but not the property itself.

Re:NASA property how?

[JazzHarper]

Maritime law does not work like that. There is no time limit. The owner must make a formal declaration of abandonment. NASA has not abandoned title to these engines. The salvor is entitled to a reward for recovering them, but cannot claim ownership of them.

Re:Why are they NASA's property?

[JazzHarper]

Under international maritime law, the objects remain the property of the original owner forever, unless that owner has formally abandoned claim to them. The salvor may go to court to claim a reward for recovering the property, but is not entitled the property itself.

Re:Strange feeling

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Well, the ascent stages DID crash back to the moon after the crew redocked with the CSM, then jettisoned the ascent stage.

They didn't end up back at the landing sites, though.

Re:Whose Property Legally?

[JazzHarper]

That's what the courts (or arbitrators) are for. It is up to the court to decide what the amount of the reward will be, based on a long list of factors set out in the International Convention on Salvage (1989). Typically, the reward will be less than 50% of the value of the property recovered, although it can be more for sunken treasure. The salvor does not need to have (and in fact, must not have) a pre-existing agreement with the owner to have a pure (or "merit") salvage claim.

In general, if the owner of the vessel refuses to pay the reward arising from a successful salvage, the court can seize the property and order it to be sold at auction to satisfy the claim. Of course, there can be lots of details and exceptions in specific cases.

Re:What's the point?

[Catmeat]

Having seen a couple of aircraft wrecks that have been salvaged, all they'll be able to retrieve is a hunk of junk.

Having seen pictures of World War 2 aircraft, recovered form the sea after 70 years, that looked like the only restoration needed was to hose off the mud and straighten the propeller (see image), I'd say neither of us have any real idea what condition they'll be in.

Basically, it's all about what angle the S-I stage hit the water 40 years ago. Cold deep sea is comparatively kind to aircraft alloys, although post-recovery conservation is a massive problem.