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CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos recovers Apollo 11's Saturn V F-1 engines

quagmire

quagmire

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 19, 2004
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Last edited:
jav6454 said:
To the museum!
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We know the Smithsonian will get one. Who will get the other is up for grabs. Bezos wants it to go to Seattle( he has no control over it since the F-1's still belong to NASA)

Also, I should clarify that they believe these are Apollo 11's F-1's. Serial numbers on the engines are damaged or partially missing so identifying the specific mission these flew on will be difficult.
 
jav6454 said:
We had how many Apollo missions? Trying to decipher if they were the 11's is going to be skeptical at best without that serial # info.
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13 Saturn V's were launched( not all Apollo missions used the Saturn V. Some used the Saturn IB which the first stage used the H-1 engine). So that is 65 F-1's that they have to track down and determine if the two that were recovered were apart of the Saturn V that launched Apollo 11. NASA tracked where each first stage fell, so chances are these are Apollo 11's F-1's. But, of course the serial #'s are needed to confirm.
 
Wow, that is amazing. It is still hard to believe and very sad that we have not returned to the moon in over 40 years.
 
Quick reverse-engineer those suckers!

Congress demanded that NASA destroy all blueprints/designs for Saturn V rockets as part of kicking off the Space Shuttle program in the 1970's. Brilliant move, elected dunderheads.

Of course Space-X (private/commercial space company) already has a kinda-heavy lift vehicle design that delivered an unmanned supply module to the ISS already, having a reliable alternative (design) is always a good thing.
 
Sayer said:
Quick reverse-engineer those suckers!

Congress demanded that NASA destroy all blueprints/designs for Saturn V rockets as part of kicking off the Space Shuttle program in the 1970's. Brilliant move, elected dunderheads.

Of course Space-X (private/commercial space company) already has a kinda-heavy lift vehicle design that delivered an unmanned supply module to the ISS already, having a reliable alternative (design) is always a good thing.
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For the Saturn V? Maybe, but they are considering reviving the F-1's to be used on a strap on booster for the 130t version of their upcoming SLS rocket to replace the 5 segment SRB's.

SpaceX is also developing a Falcon Heavy rocket as well. Which is like the Delta IV heavy, just three core stages strapped together.
 
Sayer said:
Quick reverse-engineer those suckers!

Congress demanded that NASA destroy all blueprints/designs for Saturn V rockets as part of kicking off the Space Shuttle program in the 1970's. Brilliant move, elected dunderheads.
Click to expand...

None of that is true.
 
filmbuff said:
To the Museum of When America Could Get Something Done!
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I never could understand how we were able to go from nothing to the moon in just a few years. Then in the decades since we have not sent human beings further than in orbit around the Earth.

Oh sure, I have heard plenty of reasons like 'robots make more sense' and such. In the 60s it was not about what would make the most sense or we would have done more with something like the Surveror line than the Apollos ..... like the Russian space program did with their lunar unmanned flights.

We sent Apollos vs robots for one reason: to inspire. Why the powers-that-be think we do not need inspiration anymore is beyond me.
 
Remember that public interest waned towards the end of the Apollo program. By then going to space. even the moon, had become routine (even if it wasn't from an engineering perspective).

How many people in this forum can name 5 modern day astronauts? How about 3? Oh, and Hadfield doesn't count. Sadly, this is just the way things are.

Raise your kids to look up to scientists, and not athletes, (some) musicians, or actors. I'm not saying the latter 3 are worthless to society, but they aren't going to solve the problems facing the world today. They can help you raise awareness, so maybe a partnership between them would be worth pursuing.

I'm doing my part. My 13 year old daughter loves math above all else and asks to visit KSC (rather than me needing to drag her there. She still has her interests in pop culture, but she knows that it isn't the center of the universe.


KaraH said:
I never could understand how we were able to go from nothing to the moon in just a few years. Then in the decades since we have not sent human beings further than in orbit around the Earth.

Oh sure, I have heard plenty of reasons like 'robots make more sense' and such. In the 60s it was not about what would make the most sense or we would have done more with something like the Surveror line than the Apollos ..... like the Russian space program did with their lunar unmanned flights.

We sent Apollos vs robots for one reason: to inspire. Why the powers-that-be think we do not need inspiration anymore is beyond me.
Click to expand...
 
Sayer said:
Quick reverse-engineer those suckers!

Congress demanded that NASA destroy all blueprints/designs for Saturn V rockets as part of kicking off the Space Shuttle program in the 1970's. Brilliant move, elected dunderheads.

Of course Space-X (private/commercial space company) already has a kinda-heavy lift vehicle design that delivered an unmanned supply module to the ISS already, having a reliable alternative (design) is always a good thing.
Click to expand...
You bet the engineers made copies or destroyed something else. They are part of NASA for being super smart.
 
Someone once said the road to the moon is paved along the bottom of the Atlantic with spent Saturn V's.
 
Sayer said:
... Congress demanded that NASA destroy all blueprints/designs for Saturn V rockets as part of kicking off the Space Shuttle program in the 1970's. Brilliant move, elected dunderheads. ...
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Per: Saturn 5 Blueprints Safely in Storage

A NASA official has denied a claim made by a book author that blueprints for the mighty Saturn 5 rocket used to push Apollo astronauts to the moon were lost.

The denial came in response to a recent story in SPACE.com that reported on a claim John Lewis made in his 1996 book, Mining the Sky, that he went looking for the Saturn 5 blueprints a few years ago and concluded, incredibly, they had been "lost."

Paul Shawcross, from NASA's Office of Inspector General, came to the agency's defense in comments published on CCNet -- a scholarly electronic newsletter covering the threat of asteroids and comets. Shawcross said the Saturn 5 blueprints are held at the Marshall Space Flight Center on microfilm.

...

In years past, rumors have abounded that in the 1970s the White House or Congress had the Saturn 5 plans destroyed "to prevent the technology from falling into the wrong hands".
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