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Bezos Expeditions Recovers Pieces of Apollo 11 Rockets

Posted by samzenpus on from the treasure-finder dept.

skade88 writes "Jeff Bezos has been spending his time fishing up parts of the Apollo 11 rockets. From his blog 'What an incredible adventure. We are right now onboard the Seabed Worker headed back to Cape Canaveral after finishing three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface. We found so much. We've seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program. We photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces. Each piece we bring on deck conjures for me the thousands of engineers who worked together back then to do what for all time had been thought surely impossible.'"

11 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Dammit, editors! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nothing here says there were from Apollo 11! Included in the post is the statement:

    Many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which is going to make mission identification difficult.

    1. Re:Dammit, editors! by voidptr · · Score: 3, Informative

      He stated a year ago he was looking specifically for Apollo 11 and started with estimates of where that particular flight profile would have ended up.

      It's possible this stage is from another launch with a similar ground track and they can't confirm it until they find an intact serial number, but it's likely these are Apollo 11.

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    2. Re:Dammit, editors! by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm not sure how much I buy that... even partial serial numbers should be enough to determine that they pieces are likely to be from mission 'x' and not from mission 'y'. Enough partials and the level of confidence as to which mission they came from can get pretty high.

      You can also compare the recovery location to the impact point for each mission - Apollo By The Numbers has a table giving the impact locations for the S-IC and S-II stages. I'd have to plot it out to see how far apart they are, but at first glance they're modestly well scattered. (Anyone know how to convert those lat/long coordinates into WGS-84 or Google Earth coordinates?) Again, not a smoking gun but definitely a way to increase the confidence level.

    3. Re:Dammit, editors! by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's possible this stage is from another launch with a similar ground track and they can't confirm it until they find an intact serial number, but it's likely these are Apollo 11.

      You can't make that assessment. There were 10 test launches, each of which would have left some debris in the ocean. There were an additional 6 unmanned launches, and 12 manned missions. There were an additional 5 launches using the same launch technology. That's a total of 33 flights which had the same hardware as the materials they've recovered. Only one of those 33 was Apollo 11. You can't say it's likely -- the odds are against it. At best, it's an educated guess.

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    4. Re:Dammit, editors! by sahonen · · Score: 5, Informative

      The F1 engine only ever flew aboard the Saturn V, and only 13 of those were ever launched. Still not the greatest odds, but much better than 1/33.

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  2. Oh Gawd... by qw(name) · · Score: 4, Funny

    He's turning into some super villain. Wait, he was already one. nvm...

    1. Re:Oh Gawd... by jd2112 · · Score: 4, Funny

      You are thinking of Larry Ellison.

      --
      Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  3. Re:Ownership of recovered artifacts by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Military ships remain the property of the owning government.

    Spain has used this to claim the salvage of gold from treasure ships and won.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. Re:Duty of a CEO by afgam28 · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's the duty of your job? Does it include making dumb comments on Slashdot, or is that just something you do in your spare time?

  5. NASA can buy them back off Amazon by new+death+barbie · · Score: 3, Funny

    F1 Rocket Engines

    Just like the ones used in the Saturn-5 rocket.

    0 available new
    3 available used.

    Premium members get free overnight shipping!

    --

    It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.

  6. Maybe not 11, but definitely Apollo by skidisk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The F1s were only used on the Apollo missions, and they were truly awesome -- they shook the ground like nothing you've ever experienced. My dad worked for NASA and we saw the flights. Even three miles away, it was scary powerful. To give you an idea, one of those F-1 has more power than 3(!) Shuttle MAIN engines -- and there were FIVE F-1s at the bottom of Saturn's first stage. So that's like fifteen shuttles taking off at once. You have no idea what that's like...